Antibody Drug Conjugates: Unlocking the Future of Immunotherapies

Dear Colleagues,

Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC) are quintessential example of advanced biopharmaceutical therapies. These targeted nanomedicines use the specificity of monoclonal antibodies to guide highly potent cytotoxic payloads to specific target cell. The resulting ADCs have a broader therapeutic window than their potent payloads while sparing healthy cells. Currently there are 12 ADCs approved for the treatment of haematological and solid tumour malignancies including: ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla™), brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris™), inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa™), gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg™) , Moxetumomab pasudotox (Lumoxiti™), polatuzumab vedotin-piiq (Polivy™), Enfortumab vedotin (Padcev™), Sacituzumab govitecan (Trodelvy), Trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu™), belantamab mafodotin-blmf (Blenrep™) , loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl (ZYNLONTA™), and totoaba vedotin-tftv (Tivdak). The field of ADC development is further growing in strength with more than 100 ADCs currently being investigated at either preclinical phase or at clinical trials. 

Despite growing interest in this complex biopharmaceutical modality challenges remain to improve ADC quality, safety, and efficacy.

This Special Issue of Pharmaceutics will focus on recent advances in ADC development from ADC design including identification of new targets, antibody selection, development of new conjugation and linker chemistry technologies, novel payloads and mechanism of action, ADC characterisation platforms, to ADC preclinical characterisation including pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, biodistribution, toxicity and efficacy studies and clinical studies looking at oncology and non-oncology applications. In addition, studies looking at development of small molecular conjugates and bispecifics and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to drive the development of ADC technologies are encouraged. Review articles should be focused in addressing limitations in the field and discussing successful and discontinued ADCs as lessons learned.

Prof. Dr. Deyarina Gonzalez
Prof. Dr. R. Steven Conlan
Guest Editors

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