Last year marked a first for engineered antibodies–the European Commission approved a new cancer drug called Removab catumaxomab, an antibody specially designed to grab both cancer cells and immune cells in such a way that the immune cell can kill the cancer cell. The drug is undergoing testing for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.
Now a handful of similarly complex molecules, dubbed “bispecific antibodies” for their ability to target two things at once, are in clinical trials. The two arms of these antibodies work together in different ways to treat cancer or other diseases, by bringing together two types of cells, as with Removab, by targeting two different types of receptors on the surface of a cell, or even using one arm to deliver drugs to specific cells targeted by the other.
Biosingularity 