"One of the biggest problems with developing antibodies for cancer is that most of them have no therapeutic effect by themselves, even if they target and bind cancer cells specifically. As a result,
for every Herceptin out there, there are dozens, if not hundreds of antibodies who can bind and recognize specific antigens on cancer cells, but have no therapeutic use. Attaching drugs to those antibodies may turn many of them into very potent agents, regardless of their inactivity as naked antibodies. All of the sudden, those
“useless” antibodies turn into an infinite pool of potential drugs, so there is no need to develop new antibodies. That is why, in our opinion, technologies such as Immunogen’s do not only advance the field of cancer antibodies toward safer and more effective treatments, but actually represent
a true revolution, as it shortens time-to-market of potential drugs. Since there are so many well studied antibodies that have already been developed and characterized, the resources and time required for bringing such immunoconjugates to the clinic become dramatically lower."
http://www.hammerstockblog.com/immun...tin-dm1-t-dm1/