RESEARCH

In addition to our pipeline of product candidates, we continue to invest in earlier-stage antibody-based therapies to ensure long-term strength of our pipeline. Our internal research activities are directed toward:

Novel Antigen Targets and Monoclonal Antibodies
We are actively engaged in internal efforts to identify and develop monoclonal antibodies and ADCs with novel specificities and activities against selected antigen targets. We focus on proteins that are highly expressed in cancer to identify those proteins that are located on the surface of cancer cells that may serve as targets for monoclonal antibodies or ADCs. We then create and screen panels of cancer-reactive monoclonal antibodies in our laboratories to identify those with the desired specificity.

We supplement these internal efforts by evaluating opportunities to in-license targets and antibodies from academic groups and other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, such as our ongoing collaboration with Agensys.

Antibody Engineering
We have substantial internal expertise in antibody engineering, both for antibody humanization and defucosylation, as well as engineering of antibodies to improve drug linkage sites for use with our ADC technology. By modifying the number and type of drug-linkage sites found on our antibodies, we believe that we can improve the robustness and cost-effectiveness of our manufacturing processes for conjugation of ADCs.

New Cell-Killing Drugs
We continue to study new cell-killing drugs that can be linked to antibodies, such as the auristatins that we currently use in our ADC technology. We are evaluating multiple new auristatins, as well as other classes of cell-killing drugs, for potential applications as ADCs.