Bispecific antibody: a tool for diagnosis and treatment of disease

SUMMARY Antibodies with two distinet binding specificities have great potential for a wide range of clinical applications as targeting agents for in vitro and in vivo immunodiagnosis and therapy, and for improving immunoassays. They have shown great promise for targeting eytotoxic effector cells, delivering radinuclides, toxins or cytotoxic drugs to specific targets, particularly tumour cells. We discuss potential applications of bispecitic antibodies, the theoretical basis and problems associated with their production and purification. Cell fusion and chemical conjugation techniques, and propose a new manufacturing strategy by genetic engineering. This approach has enormous potential applications for producing tailor‐made bispecific antibodies, and will enable widespread clinical uses of these antibodies both for diagnostic purposes and therapy.