Building Better Proteins

By Bob Grant Building Better Proteins Antibodies are big business. And emerging technologies to optimize their therapeutic potential may make them even bigger. A virus (blue) surrounded by immunoglobulin (IgG) molecules. The Y-shaped antibody molecules have two arms that can bind to specific antigens, marking pathogens for destruction by immune cells. © TIM VERNON / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY There are approximately 24 monoclonal antibody therapies on th

Written byBob Grant

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There are approximately 24 monoclonal antibody therapies on the US market at present, and approximately 240 more in various stages of clinical investigation. Nearly 30 were in Phase III trials as of last October. Between 2003 and 2004 the market for these compounds, which treat everything from cancer to multiple sclerosis, grew by more than 48 percent to more than $10 billion, and has since quadrupled to some $40 billion.

But the rapidly expanding market is getting crowded, making it an unfriendly place to introduce a whole new antibody therapy into the mix. At the same time, the patents for many of the first antibodies, developed in the early 1990s, are about to expire. This has some drug makers engineering existing products into new and improved antibodies, or whole series of similar antibodies, to extend the patent lives of those therapies.

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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