Recombinant antibodies for cancer diagnosis and therapy

Recombinant antibodies now represent over 30% of biopharmaceuticals in clin ical trials, highlighted by the recent approvals for cancer immunotherapy f rom the FDA which has awoken the biotechnology industry. Sales of these ant ibodies are increasing very rapidly to a predicted US$ 3 billion per annum worldwide by 2002. Since the development of new therapeutic reagent into co mmercial product takes 10 years, the recent FDA-approved antibodies are bas ed on early antibody designs which are now considered primitive. Emerging t echnologies have created a vast range of novel, recombinant, antibody-based reagents which specifically target clinical biomarkers, of disease. In the past year, radiolabelling of antibodies has increased their potential for cancer imaging and targeting. Recombinant antibodies have also been reduced in size and rebuilt into multivalent molecules for higher affinity. in add ition, antibodies have been fused with many molecules including toxins, enz ymes and viruses for prodrug therapy, cancer treatment and gene delivery. R ecombinant antibody technology has enabled clever manipulations in the cons truction of complex antibody library repertoires for the selection of high- affinity reagents against refractory targets. Although phage display remain s the most extensively used method, this year high affinity reagents have b een isolated using alternative display and selection systems such as riboso me display and yeast display confirming the emergence of new display method s. Furthermore, innovative affinity maturation strategies have been develop ed to obtain high affinity reagents. This review focuses on developments in the last 12 months and describes the latest developments in the design, pr oduction and clinical use of recombinant antibodies for cancer diagnosis an d therapy.