The Antibody Engineering & Design 2010 conference, held in Frankfurt, included topics covering new developments in the field of therapeutic antibodies. This conference report highlights selected presentations on 'fit for purpose' biologics, improving the pharmaceutical properties of antibodies, the selection of antibody fragments for therapeutic use, challenges in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, developing dual-targeting antibodies, epitope mapping, and the development of two novel mAbs. Investigational drugs discussed include 1D4.1-ABT325 (Abbott Laboratories), Sym-004 (Symphogen A/S) and CNTO-607 (Johnson & Johnson).