There is rising traction surrounding the development of rabbit monoclonal antibodies for cancer treatment, says Jennifer Bath, CEO at ImmunoPrecise Antibodies.
In an exclusive interview with Pharmaceutical Technology, Bath described a rising interest in the company’s rabbit monoclonal antibody platform. “It has very rapidly become the number one revenue generator for our company in the past 12 months,” says Bath. “Rabbit antibodies have a much higher affinity, so they bind stronger to their target. That usually equates to better efficacy and potentially higher specificity,” adds Bath. Bath claims the modality is safer for patients as the higher specificity causes less off-targets.
ImmunoPrecise is a biotherapeutic research and technology company that specialises in antibody discovery through its artificial intelligence (AI) platform. The pharmaceutical company also has platforms for the discovery of B cell therapies, chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies, and chicken antibody therapies.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has previously approved rabbit monoclonal antibody therapies for different conditions, like Novartis’s Beovu (brolucizumab) for the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in 2019. Since then, the therapy has been approved for the treatment of diabetic macular oedema.
The agency has also recognised the use of rabbit monoclonal antibodies in a diagnostic context. In 2022, the FDA approved Roche’s PATHWAY anti-HER2/neu (4B5) rabbit monoclonal primary antibody for the identification of metastatic breast cancer patients with low HER2 expression. These patients are eligible to receive the targeted treatment AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Enhertu (fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki) .
Bath characterises the growing interest in the monoclonal antibody space as positive, saying: “People have made this rapid move away from small molecules, which are not able to address these more complicated targets, into therapeutics. In doing this they have begun to explore other modalities that have more unique traits to them.”
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Your download email will arrive shortly
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalData
