Antibody-Drug Conjugates as Novel and Potent Cancer Therapeutics

Conventional chemotherapeutic drugs to treat cancer suffers from the lack of selectivity towards the tumor site and thus causing damage to even healthy tissues. Drug dose escalation to therapeutically active levels is often impossible with chemotherapeutic drugs due to this toxicity. The selectivity of the treatment was improved with the introduction of monoclonal antibody drugs that are directed against targets that are selectively expressed in tumor cells [1-5]. Because antibodies bind specifically to their cognate antigen on the surface of cells, they can also be used as vehicles to selectively deliver the cytotoxic drug to the cancer cells. The class of therapeutic drug products where monoclonal antibody is conjugated with cytotoxic drug (pay load) are called Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) [6]. ADCs are powerful cancer therapeutics which provides high selectivity and efficacy towards cancer cells, and reduced toxicity to healthy cells [6,7].