Antibodies to Watch
Monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutics were first developed in the 1980s. During the 1990s and 2000s, substantial advances in numerous technologies, including those needed for the design, engineering, selection, and manufacturing of antibodies, as well as advances in the understanding of disease mechanisms, were made. These advances, and the global dissemination of antibody research and development skills, enabled increasing numbers of antibody therapeutics to enter clinical study and gain marketing approvals. Starting in 2010, the ‘Antibodies to Watch’ article series documented the commercial clinical pipeline of antibody therapeutics by reporting details of antibodies in late-stage clinical studies, candidate products in regulatory review, and recent approvals of novel mAb therapeutics. The remarkable growth in the pipeline is apparent when data from the annual articles are compared. For example, the late-stage clinical pipeline comprised 26 mAbs in ‘Antibodies to watch in 2010’, but 115 mAbs in ‘Antibodies to watch in 2022’, while during the same period more than 70 novel antibody therapeutics were granted marketing approvals. The forecasting of future events, particularly the submission of marketing applications for antibody therapeutics in late-stage clinical studies, is a key feature of the ‘Antibodies to Watch’ articles. The articles also include tables listing all relevant antibody therapeutics in late-stage development. The article series has become quite popular, with recent versions downloaded over 25000 times. Due to this great demand, we anticipate a new ‘Antibodies to Watch’ article will be published each year well into the future. The ’Antibodies to Watch’ articles present the perspective of the author(s) on a time-sensitive topic. As such, these articles are not subjected to the journal’s standard peer review policy and are published without undergoing peer review.
Edited by
Dr. Janice Reichert(Executive Director, The Antibody Society, and Editor-in-Chief, mAbs)