Monoclonal Antibody Therapies for Infectious Diseases.

In contrast to therapy in oncology and immune-related diseases, where dozens of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been introduced, often in transformative fashion, the use of mAbs for infectious diseases is generally underdeveloped, with fewer than a dozen mAbs currently licensed for the treatment of microbial diseases. This situation is paradoxical given that antibodies are major products of the immune system for protecting against infectious diseases. The underdevelopment of mAbs for infectious diseases has several causes including the availability of effective therapy against many microbial diseases, the fact that many pathogenic microbes are antigenically diverse and thus all strains are not covered by a single mAb, and the high expense of mAb therapies. Despite these hurdles the number of mAbs licensed for infectious disease indications is slowly increasing and there are numerous opportunities for the development of mAbs in the prevention and treatment of microbial diseases.