The greatest challenge in cancer treatment is to eradicate cancer cells while minimizing the loss of normal cells. To address this challenge, targeted therapies have been developed, significantly increasing the therapeutic index compared to traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Antibody drugs are important members of the targeted therapy family because they have very high specificity for the target antigen. Therapeutic antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, and immune checkpoint antibodies have been developed, and bispecific antibodies have been designed to redirect the patient's T cells to kill cancer cells.
Antibody therapies can be divided into three main forms based on their structure and mechanism of action: monospecific antibodies, bispecific antibodies, and antibodies that carry payloads (such as drugs, toxins, radioactive drugs). These different types and mechanisms of antibodies provide multiple strategies to target and kill cancer cells, each method having its unique advantages and potential application prospects, bringing new hope for cancer treatment.
Currently, the variety of international innovative antibody drugs is continuously enriched, and modified antibody drugs have become a frontier hotspot. Looking at the development and market of international antibody drugs, especially the recent situation where FDA-approved antibody drugs have entered phase III clinical trials, the future development trend of new targets, new functions, and new structures of modified antibody drugs is clear. These include humanized ADCC effect-enhanced modified antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), multifunctional antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor-modified T cells(CAR-T), becoming the new generation of products.
Many new technology platforms have been developed on the basis of the original antibody preparation. A batch of antibodies with new targets, epitopes, and structures represented by T cell activating and inhibitory receptors (PD-1, CTLA-4, etc.) have become popular candidates in global biopharmaceuticals. As precision medicine advances, antibody drugs will also play an unparalleled role with advantages due to their "precise targeting."
Updated: Mar 30, 2025
