Anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies: historical and future perspectives

Abstract

Antibodies to CD20 have confirmed the hypothesis that monoclonal reagents can be given in vivo to alleviate human diseases. The targeting of CD20 on normal, malignant and auto-immune B-lymphocytes by rituximab has demonstrated substantial benefits for patients with a variety of B-cell lymphomas, as well as some with autoimmune disorders. There has been a notable increase in the survival rates from B-cell lymphoma in the decade since anti-CD20 therapy was introduced.

Figure 1.

History of CD20 mAb in clinical translation. The time-line describes the chronological introduction over the last three decades of respective anti-CD20 mAb in human trials, as well as the corresponding progress in Ab technology from 1^st through to 3^rd generation reagents: generation Ab are murine or human/mouse chimeric Ab, 2^nd generation Ab are either humanized or fully human and 3^rd generation Ab have further modifications to the Ab structure e.g. mutation or a-fucosylation of the Fc domain for enhanced FcR binding profiles.