One of the most challenging aspects in developing new mAb therapeutics is target discovery. Identification of new, validated and preferably functional targets is difficult to sustain and is clearly a bottleneck in the development of next generation mAbs. Importantly, we bring to your attention an international conference focused on addressing this issue. Labex MABImprove is a French-led consortium of academic laboratories jointly working on several aspects of the development of next-generation mAbs. The network organizes annual international meetings that bring together groups from academia and industry to discuss the different challenges faced in the therapeutic mAbs field. The 2018 symposium, co-organized with MabDesign, was held on 26-25 June 2018 in Monpellier, France. The symposium addressed the concern that while the antibody therapeutic market is rapidly expanding, the number of targets explored is inadequate, given the numerous failures that have occurred as prospective therapeutics enter the pipeline. A report, recently published by Pierre Martineau and colleagues, summarizes the talks given by numerous experts in the field of antibody therapeutics. The symposium’s plenary speaker was Dr. Roy Baynes (Merck, Sharp and Dohme), who gave a talk entitled, “Pembrolizumab – a transformative backbone anti-cancer therapy.” The symposium was divided into sessions that covered past successes and failures of therapeutic antibody development, discovery approaches, new technologies for discovery and validation, pre-clinical development models and emerging antibody targets.
To read the report, please see Pierre Martineau, Hervé Watier, Andre Pèlegrin & Andrei Turtoi, “Targets for MAbs: innovative approaches for their discovery & validation, LabEx MAbImprove 6th antibody industrial symposium, June 25-26, 2018, Montpellier, France,” 2019; mAbs 11(5), 812-825. DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2019.1612691.
Chamow & Associates assists companies to develop biologics for clinical testing and welcomes your inquiry.
Posted August 8, 2019
