New ADC technology from Merck KGaA

Merck KGaA’s Life Science business sector has launched ChetoSensar, a technology that improves the solubility of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Over 20% of ADC candidates are terminated in clinical trials because of poor solubility. The company said that this supports it efforts to double its ADC and HPAPI capacity in the near future.

Merck has been involved in 50% of the commercially approved ADCs on the market today. It has calculated that its new Dolcore platform significantly reduces the development and manufacturing time required to develop ADCs, increasing speed-to-market for a novel Dolostatin-based ADC payload by up to a year.

The company will also enhance the ADC capabilities of its clinical manufacturing facility in St Louis, Missouri, in December, giving it more space for large-scale production, including chromatographic purification for early-phase supply. This follows the announcement in 2020 of a €59 million expansion of the facility at Madison, Wisconsin, to double its HPAPI kilo lab capacity and enable it to expedite the manufacture of HPAPIs, ADC linkers and payloads, and complex APIs.