Polyclonals: A Third Generation of Antibody Therapeutics

for over a century. Traditional immunoglobulin therapy has the advantage of reflecting the diversity of the natural immune response, but has limited clinical applications. During the past 10 years, many monoclonal antibodies have been successfully introduced to the market. The monoclonal antibody approach has the advantage of specificity, but often lacks efficacy in the treatment of diseases caused by complex antigens. Recombinant polyclonal antibodies are expected to have the ability to tackle complex and highly mutagenic targets, and hold much promise for the future – but their large-scale industrial production has, until recently, remained elusive. However, new discovery and expression technology platforms – as discussed in the present review – have provided a means for the consistent and robust manufacturing of recombinant polyclonal antibody compositions, and thus constitutes a third generation of antibody therapeutics to enter clinical development.