Current Trends in Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) Characterization

Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) are a highly potent class of molecules that by design, overcome limitations of their component therapies in terms of reducing toxicity to normal/ healthy tissue and increasing penetration into the intended target. In general, ADCs have higher tumor-killing ability compared to the antibody alone and improve the therapeutic index of the cytotoxic drug by reducing off-target effects. Since Mylotarg® (gemtuzumab ozogamicin) was approved in 2000 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 14 ADCs have received market approval.

This review by Dr. Shashank Sharma and Ashleigh Wake describes key aspects of ADC structure characterization - such as conjugation, heterogeneity, physicochemical and structural characterization approaches, conjugation and PTMs sites, higher order structural assessment, aggregation, charge variants, and drug antibody ratio (DAR) determination and drug load distribution (DLD).