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.
“That ...
