CPHI Milan 2024: New Developments in ADC Technologies

*Editor's note: updated on March 3, 2025 to fix typographical error.

Pharmaceutical Technology® Europe spoke with Nicolas Camper, senior director—Bioconjugation Chemistry at Abzena during CPHI Milan. Camper discussed the advancements in conjugation and linker technologies in antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) development and manufacturing.

Nicolas Camper, Senior Director—Bioconjugation Chemistry, Abzena. Image courtesy of Abzena.

“There have been a lot of new developments in terms of conjugation and linker technologies. There is a definitive move towards site-specific conjugation technologies and away from stochastic conjugation approaches that allows [us] to prepare better-defined antibody-[drug] conjugates,” Camper said.

Another new development that has been observed over the past few years is that linkers are becoming more sophisticated. “Quite often, when you conjugate cytotoxic drugs, they are quite hydrophobic, and that can impact the performance of your ADC. So, there has been a lot of effort put into developing more hydrophilic linkers,” he noted.

Finally, another noticeable advancement in this area has been the development of branch linkers. Branch linkers give some options to prepare ADCs and modulate the drug loading, Camper explained. “[T]hat is something relatively new and should have an impact on the performance of ADCs and ultimately result in better ADCs and more programs,” he stated.

In his role at Abzena, Camper has scientific oversight of the group’s R&D activities focusing on ADC design and developability for external clients. His responsibilities involve technical management of pre-clinical ADC development projects from discovery stage to lead candidate selection. The group has expertise in synthetic chemistry, assembling linker-payloads, conjugation of the linker-payload to various types of protein carriers (primarily antibodies), and analysis of these bioconjugates.

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Attendees can visit Abzena at Booth 18H11. CPHI Milan is being held from Oct. 8–10, 2024 in Milan, Italy.

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