Call For Papers: Conjugate Drug Substances

The rapid expansion of conjugated drug substance modalities is transforming the therapeutic landscape, offering new ways to address complex and unmet patient needs. However, the growing molecular complexity of these systems presents significant challenges in synthesis, purification, control, and scale-up. Advancing robust and innovative process development approaches is therefore critical to translating these promising modalities from discovery into reliable clinical and commercial manufacturing.

Organic Process Research & Development is pleased to present this Special Issue, “Conjugate Drug Substances,” which will highlight state-of-the-art advances in process science for complex conjugated molecules. This collection will focus on innovative synthetic, analytical, and manufacturing strategies that enable sustainability, scalability, quality, and speed to market for modalities such as antibody–drug conjugates, antibody–oligonucleotide conjugates, peptide drug conjugates, and conjugate vaccines. By bringing together contributions from both industry and academia, this Special Issue aims to define the current and future state of process development for conjugated therapeutics.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Novel synthetic or hybrid process approaches for conjugated drug substances
• Integrated process workflows and automation
• Computational modeling and AI/ML tools to enable process development
• Scalable purification and advanced analytical strategies
• Case studies demonstrating technology transfer or regulatory strategies
• Cross-disciplinary innovations bridging chemistry, biology, analytical sciences, and process engineering
• Drug–linker synthesis, process development, and regulatory strategies as enablers of conjugate performance

Organizing Editors

Jarrod Cohen, Guest Editor
Merck, United States of America

Ravi Singh, Guest Editor
Sutro Biopharma, United States of America

Nathan D. Ide, Guest Editor, OPR&D Editorial Advisory Board Member
AbbVie, United States of America

Kevin Cole, Guest Editor, OPR&D Editorial Advisory Board Member
Eli Lilly, United States of America

Margaret M. Faul, Editor-in-Chief, OPR&D
Amgen, United States of America

Submission Information

We welcome submissions for this Special Issue through October 31, 2026. For more information on submission requirements, please visit the Information for Authors page for OPR&D.

Accepted manuscripts for consideration in this Special Issue can be submitted in several forms: Article (full research papers), Perspective, Review, or a Communication/Technical Note within our Call for Short Papers. Papers accepted for publication for this Special Issue will be available ASAP (as soon as publishable) online as soon as they are accepted. After all submissions have been published, they will then be compiled online on a dedicated landing page to form the Special Issue. Manuscripts submitted for consideration will undergo the full rigorous peer review process expected from ACS journals.

Open Access

There are diverse open access options for publications in American Chemical Society journals. Please visit our Open Science Resource Center for more information. Additionally, authors who must comply with open access mandates can find more information about options available with ACS at our Meeting Public Access Requirements page.

How to Submit

• Log in to the ACS Publishing Center.
• Choose Organic Process Research & Development.
• Select your manuscript type and upload your manuscript and related files.
• Review the title and abstract fields to ensure any pre-populated information has uploaded correctly.
• Under "Special Issue Selection," choose “Conjugate Drug Substances."
• Confirm all other information has uploaded correctly.
• Submit your article.

If you have any general questions regarding submission to this Special Issue, please contact the editorial offices of the journal (oprd@oprd.acs.org).