The challenges of translation

Cancer immunotherapy is a highly active area in translational medicine where the challenges and rewards of developing new drugs "from bench to bedside" become particularly visible. Here, we comment on both, the scientific and non-scientific hurdles of this translational process using the example of bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, two closely related strategies for antibody-guided recruitment of T cells against cancer. Both exert impressive therapeutic activity and were recently approved for treatment of B-cell malignancies. We discuss how the efficacy of these auspicious therapeutic tools may be further improved, in particular against solid tumors, but we also address another critical issue: Since both approaches were already introduced in the 1980s, why did it take almost thirty years until they became clinically available?