Antibody Engineering And The Bispecific Revolution | Dr. Tahamtan Ahmadi, MD, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines, Genmab

Send us Fan Mail What if we stopped thinking about antibodies as simply drugs that bind to one target - and started thinking about them as engineered molecular machines? Today we're talking about a bispecific antibody that targets both EGFR and LGR5, and asking whether that kind of antibody engineering could actually change the treatment landscape for head and neck cancer. Dr. Tahamtan Ahmadi, MD, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines at Genmab ( https://www.genmab.com/ ), one of the world's leading biotechnology companies focused on developing next-generation antibody medicines. Dr. Ahmadi is a hematologist and oncologist by training, with a career spanning academic medicine, translational research, drug development and global clinical development. He earned his M.D. from the University of Cologne in Germany and his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Freiburg, followed by residency training in hematology and oncology at the University of Cologne and Boston Medical Center and a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he subsequently served on the faculty of the Division of Hematology and Oncology. Before joining Genmab, Dr. Ahmadi spent five years at Janssen, where he ultimately became Vice President and Head of Experimental Medicine and Early Development Oncology. Perhaps most notably, he was deeply involved in the global development of daratumumab, an antibody that fundamentally changed the treatment of multiple myeloma and became one of the landmark examples of modern antibody-based cancer therapy. Dr. Ahmadi joined Genmab in 2017 as Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology and became the company's Chief Medical Officer and Head of Experimental Medicines in 2021. In that role, he has been involved across research, discovery, clinical development, regulatory strategy and the translation of Genmab's antibody technologies into new medicines. And now Genmab is making a significant push into head and neck cancer - a disease area where important advances have been made, particularly with immunotherapy, but where substantial unmet need remains, especially for patients whose cancers progress after initial treatment. At the center of Genmab's strategy is petosemtamab, a next-generation bispecific antibody designed to simultaneously target EGFR and LGR5. The molecule is now being evaluated in Phase 3 trials in recurrent and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Today we're going to look at why head and neck cancer may represent an important new frontier for antibody engineering, what happens when tumors escape immunotherapy, and whether the next generation of antibody medicines can meaningfully change the trajectory for patients with this difficult disease. #HeadAndNeckCancer #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #Oncology #Immunotherapy #AntibodyEngineering #BispecificAntibodies #Petosemtamab #EGFR #LGR5 #HNSCC #Genmab #PrecisionMedicine #CancerImmunotherapy #DrugDevelopment Support the show