![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
More than 100 years ago, Paul Ehrlich proposed that antibodies could be used for therapeutic purposes. Little progress was achieved until Köhler and Milstein developed hybridoma technology in the 1970s. In 1997, rituximab, the first antibody for the treatment of cancer, was approved. Its development (laboratory and clinical) broke records, provided proof of concept for antibodies as anticancer agents and opened the floodgates for research in the area. Rituximab, in combination with cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin, oncovin and prednisone chemotherapy, was proven to increase the cure rate for patients with diffuse large cell lymphoma. Hopefully, over the next decades, we will find additional indications where antibodies in combination with other agents result in making patients cancer free, provide long-term survival and cures.
Disclosure
The author retired from IDEC Pharmaceuticals in 2001. He has had no financial interest or held stock in that company or in Biogen IDEC since 2003. He is still a consultant to Biogen IDEC and Genentech-Roche but only for rituximab patent issues. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of ONYX Pharmaceuticals and served on the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the US FDA from 2003 to 2007.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to recognize the investigators who contributed significantly to this area of research and who participated in the clinical development of rituximab and particularly the many professionals at IDEC Pharmaceuticals who were instrumental in the research and development of this monoclonal antibody . Importantly, this paper is dedicated to all patients suffering with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. None of the research described in this paper could have been performed without the selfless, courageous and generous participation of the numerous lymphoma patients who volunteered for the initial clinical trials. This is particularly true of those who participated in our Phase I trials, at a time when the efficacy and safety of the antibody were unknown. They had hope, faith and courage. They trusted us with their lives. Without these heroes, rituximab would not exist today. We, the researchers and the many patients who will benefit from rituximab, owe them a debt of gratitude.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The author is a Puerto Rican Hematologist/Oncologist with dual careers (academia and pharmaceutical research). He served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Medical and Regulatory Affairs at IDEC Pharmaceuticals from 1992 until his retirement in 2001. AJ Grillo-López was responsible for the clinical and regulatory development of rituximab including the presentation at the FDA’s Biologic Response Modifiers Committee in 1997 (today called the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee) that was critical to the approval of rituximab, the first antibody for the treatment of cancer. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.