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The success of antibody therapeutics is strongly influenced by their multifunctional nature that couples antigen recognition mediated by their variable regions with effector functions and half-life extension mediated by a subset of their constant regions. Nevertheless, the monospecific IgG format is not optimal for many therapeutic applications, and this has led to the design of a vast number of unique multispecific antibody formats that enable targeting of multiple antigens or multiple epitopes on the same antigen. Despite the diversity of these formats, a common challenge in generating multispecific antibodies is that they display suboptimal physical and chemical properties relative to conventional IgGs and are more difficult to develop into therapeutics. Here we review advances in the design and engineering of multispecific antibodies with drug-like properties, including favorable stability, solubility, viscosity, specificity and pharmacokinetic properties. We also highlight emerging experimental and computational methods for improving the next generation of multispecific antibodies, as well as their constituent antibody fragments, with natural IgG-like properties. Finally, we identify several outstanding challenges that need to be addressed to increase the success of multispecific antibodies in the clinic.

Colchicine analogues in which an azo group is incorporated into a molecule containing the key pharmacophore of colchicine, have found particular utility as switchable tubulin binding chemotherapeutics. Combretastatin is a related compound containing a stilbene fragment that shows different bioactivity for the cis and trans isomers. We have performed cell assays on 17 new compounds structurally related to a previously reported azo-analogue of combretastatin. One of these compounds showed enhanced potency against HeLa (IC50 = 0.11 μM) and H157 cells (IC50 = 0.20 μM) for cell studies under 400 nm irradiation and the highest photoactivity (IC50 with irradiation/IC50 in dark = 550). We have performed docking and physicochemical studies of this new compound (7). Kinetic studies in water reveal a longer half-life for the cis isomer of 7 which may be one factor responsible for the better IC50 values in cell assays and the improved photoresponsive behavior.