About Us

IBC Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

IBC Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (IBC) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of antibody-based, diagnostic and therapeutic products for the detection and treatment of cancers and other serious diseases. Founded as a joint venture of Immunomedics, Inc. and Beckman Coulter in 1999, IBC became a majority-owned subsidiary of Immunomedics when Beckman Coulter’s interest in the joint venture was acquired by Immunomedics in 2002.

IBC’s goal is to develop and commercialize a portfolio of proprietary pretargeting agents for the detection and treatment of various cancers and other serious diseases. These products will be based on IBC’s patented technology platform referred to as the “Affinity Enhancement System,” or AES. In clinical trials to date, AES has demonstrated significantly improved targeted delivery of imaging agents and therapeutics to specific tumors. The AES therapy approach makes use of two different reagents: the first is a tumor-targeting bispecific antibody (bsMAb) and the second is a divalent hapten carrying an imaging or therapeutic agent, to which the pre-targeted bsMAb binds with high affinity. The bsMAb has the ability to recognize both the target tumor cell and the divalent hapten carrying the imaging or therapeutic agent. One key attribute of AES is that the divalent hapten itself can also bind to two bsMAbs and is thus capable of cross-linking the bsMAbs already bound to the target cell, resulting in a very stable complex of bsMAb-hapten at the cell surface. The free hapten that is not bound to the bsMAb is quickly eliminated from the body via the urine (Figure 1). By replacing the molecule conjugated to the hapten from a diagnostic tracer to a cytotoxic agent, the same antibody used for imaging can be applied to therapy. This use of the imaging component of AES-based pretargeting together with its therapeutic component permits IBC to select patient populations that over-express a particular antigen, and then develop therapy targeted to that antigen. The advantage of this approach over the current therapy is that these patients will have a high probability of benefiting from the therapy. The ultimate goal of IBC is to offer cancer patients a more personalized targeted treatment.





Selected Literature

  1. Optimization of hapten-peptide labeling for pretargeted immunoPET of bispecific antibody using generator-produced 68Ga. H. Karacay, R.M. Sharkey, W.J. McBride, E.A. Rossi, C.H. Chang, D.M. Goldenberg. J Nucl Med 52:555-559, 2011.

  2. P. Multiple signaling pathways induced by hexavalent, monospecific, anti-CD20 and hexavalent, bispecific, anti-CD20/CD22 humanized antibodies correlate with enhanced toxicity to B-cell lymphomas and leukemias. Gupta, D.M. Goldenberg, E.A. Rossi, C.H. Chang. Blood 116:3258-3267, 2010.

  3. Improved cancer therapy and molecular imaging with multivalent, multispecific antibodies. R.M. Sharkey, E.A. Rossi, C.H. Chang, D.M. Goldenberg. Cancer Biother Radiopharm 25:1-12, 2010.

  4. Recombinant bispecific monoclonal antibodies prepared by the dock-and-lock strategy for pretargeted radioimmunotherapy. R.M. Sharkey, E.A. Rossi, W.J. McBride, C.H. Chang, D.M. Goldenberg. Semin Nucl Med 40:190-203, 2010.

  5. Pretargeted immuno-positron emission tomography imaging of carcinoembryonic antigen-expressing tumors with a bispecific antibody and a 68Ga- and 18F-labeled hapten peptide in mice with human tumor xenografts. R. Schoffelen, R.M. Sharkey, D.M. Goldenberg, G. Franssen, W.J. McBride, E.A. Rossi, C.H. Chang, P. Laverman, J.A. Disselhorst, A. Eek, W.T. van der Graaf, W.J. Oyen, O.C. Boerman. Mol Cancer Ther 9:1019-1027, 2010.

  6. Pretargeted 177Lu radioimmunotherapy of carcinoembryonic antigen-expressing human colonic tumors in mice. R. Schoffelen, W.T. van der Graaf, G. Franssen, R.M. Sharkey, D.M. Goldenberg, W.J. McBride, E.A. Rossi, A. Eek, W.J. Oyen, O.C. Boerman. J Nucl Med 51:1780-1787, 2010.

  7. Hexavalent bispecific antibodies represent a new class of anticancer therapeutics: 1. Properties of anti-CD20/CD22 antibodies in lymphoma. E.A. Rossi, D.M. Goldenberg, T.M. Cardillo, R. Stein, C.H. Chang. Blood 113:6161-6171, 2009.

  8. Bispecific antibody pretargeting PET (ImmunoPET) with an 124I-labeled hapten-peptide. W.J. McBride, P. Zanzonico, R.M. Sharkey, C. Noren, H. Karacay, E.A. Rossi, M.J. Losman, P.Y. Brard, C.H. Chang, S.M. Larson, D.M. Goldenberg. J Nucl Med 47:1678-1688, 2006.

  9. Antibody pretargeting advances cancer radioimmunodetection and radioimmunotherapy. D.M. Goldenberg, R.M. Sharkey, G. Paganelli, J. Barbet, J.F. Chatal. J Clin Oncol 24:823-834, 2006.

  10. Signal amplification in molecular imaging by pretargeting a multivalent bispecific antibody. R.M. Sharkey, T.M. Cardillo, E.A. Rossi, C.H. Chang, H. Karacay, W.J. McBride, H.J. Hansen, I.D. Horak, D.M. Goldenberg. Nature Med 11:1250-1255, 2005.

  11. Improving the delivery of radionuclides for imaging and therapy of cancer using pretargeting methods. R.M. Sharkey, H. Karacay, T.M. Cardillo, C.H. Chang, W.J. McBride, E.A. Rossi, I.D. Horak, D.M. Goldenberg. Clin Cancer Res 11:7109s-7121s, 2005.

  12. Improved targeting of pancreatic cancer: Experimental studies if a new bispecific antibody, pretargeting enhancement system for immunoscintigraphy. T.M. Cardillo, H. Karacay, D.M. Goldenberg, D. Yeldell, C. Chang, D.E. Modrak, R.M. Sharkey, D.V. Gold. Clin Cancer Res 10:3552-3561, 2004.

  13. Radioimmunotherapy in medullary thyroid cancer using bispecific antibody and iodine 131-labeled bivalent hapten: preliminary results of a phase I/II clinical trial. F. Kraeber-Bodéré, S. Bardet, C.A. Hoefnagel, M.R. Vieira, J.P. Vuillez, A. Murat, T.C. Ferreira, M. Bardiès, L. Ferrer, I. Resche, E. Gautherot, E. Rouvier, J. Barbet, J.F. Chatal. Clin Cancer Res 5:3190s-3198s, 1999.

  14. Bispecific antibody and Iodine-131-labeled bivalent hapten dosimetry in patients with medullary thyroid and small-cell lung cancer. M. Bardies, S. Bardet, A. Faivre-Chauvet, P. Peltier, J.Y. Douillard, M. Mahé, M. Fiche, A. Lisbona, F. Giacalone, P. Meyer, E. Gautherot, E. Rouvier, J. Barbet, J.F. Chatal. J Nucl Med 37:1853-1859, 1996.