News in Antibody-Drug Conjugates

This article follows up on our literary research published in 2023 in Chemické listy under the title "Antibody-drug conjugates, combinations of large and small therapeutic molecules", which dealt with a basic description of antibody-drug conjugates, the process of their synthesis, and their mechanism of action, and mentioned their advantages and disadvantages. The current article builds on this description, attempting to introduce readers to new formats for the arrangement of these conjugates. It mentions bispecific conjugates, which contain two different binding sites for the antigen molecule, and dual conjugates carrying different drug molecules with different mechanisms of action. It also describes activatable conjugates, whose binding sites are effectively masked and only revealed at the target site of action. The article also mentions immunostimulatory conjugates, which, unlike classic antibody-drug conjugates, do not carry a cytotoxic molecule, but a molecule capable of activating the patient's immune system. Conjugates capable of initiating the degradation of the target structure are also presented. Although these new formats are currently only in the clinical testing phase, it can be assumed that some of them will be launched on the market in the near future. Full text English translation is available in the on-line version.