The Development and Scale-Up of an Antibody Drug Conjugate Tubulysin Payload

Significant development and scale-up work was completed on the synthesis of an antibody drug conjugate payload based on the tubulysin natural products. This work included the development of new routes to the tubuvaline and tubuphenylaniline portions of the molecules, as well as extensive optimization of the solid phase peptide synthesis used to assemble the molecule. The initial route (21 steps longest linear sequence, 0.01% overall yield) was improved to a new, more robust route (19 steps longest linear sequence, 2.4% overall yield) affording a 240-fold increase in overall yield and allowing delivery of over 86 g of the required molecule.