The future of monoclonal antibodies
Alain Beck
Pierre Fabre
Alain Beck, Head of the Physico-Chemistry Department at Pierre Fabre, speaks to Emma Hosgood, from Hanson Wade about the field of therapeutic antibodies.
Antibody therapeutics is currently the fastest growing class of drugs in pharmaceutical industry and many companies are constantly expanding their biologics pipeline. The last ten years has seen several blockbuster antibody drugs hit the market, alongside the introduction of marketed multi-specific and drug-conjugated antibodies. Although they are considered some of the most promising therapeutics, many engineering challenges still exist and modification is still needed to make antibodies behave as better drugs such as improving solubility and stability and reducing immunogenicity. To achieve this, scientists are still exploring the best strategies to manipulate antibody structure, modulate antibody function and improve efficacy, shelf life, delivery and expression.
Emma Hosgood, from Hanson Wade, interviews Alain Beck, Head of the Physico-Chemistry Department at Pierre Fabre, about the field of therapeutic antibodies.
To listen to the full interview, please click on the play button below.
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Quicklinks:
00:12 – Alain’s background.
00:40 – What Alain thinks is the most exciting thing happening in the field of therapeutic antibodies.
01:05 – The biggest challenge that antibody engineering is facing, according to Alain.
01:34 – How Alain sees alternative formats and multispecifics affecting the field in the future.
02:02 – What the future holds for monoclonal antibody therapies.
02:29 – What Alain is most interested in hearing about at the upcoming meeting.
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About the interviewee:
Alain Beck is co-inventor on 15 patents, author/ co-author of 60 publications, guest editor for Curr Pharm Biotech (special issue on mAbs) and member of the editorial board of mAbs (Landesbioscience). He has contributed to more than 100 scientific meetings as invited speaker, panelist, moderator, advisor, chairman, and/or organizer. He has also participated to boards of experts in different biomedical &, biotechnological domains for the WHO (Molecular characterization of Vaccines &, Biologics), for the European Commission (7th FP), for the French National Research Agency (ANR) and Industrial Innovation Agency (OSEO-ANVAR).
Alain will be speaking on this topic at the upcoming Optimise Antibodies: Engineering &, Discovery meeting in Frankfurt, February 2013.
What does the future look like for monoclonal antibodies?
