New technologies in therapeutic antibody development.

The development of therapeutic antibodies took a sharp turn with the introduction of phage display technology over a decade ago. Antibodies are used in a whole range of disease fields, such as autoimmunity, cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases. Now, the first antibody derived from phage display technology has been approved in the US by the Food and Drug Administration. The antibody industry is continuously developing new and robust discovery platforms and novel antibody formats, which points to the versatility of antibodies as therapeutic and diagnostic agents.