Two ADCs are currently FDA-approved for cancer treatment; ado-trastuzumab emtansine (KADCYLA, Roche/Genentech, San Francisco, CA, USA) for the treatment of patients with human epidermal growth receptor 2 (HER2)-expressing, metastatic breast cancer (Verma et al, 2012) and brentuximab vedotin (ADCETRIS, Seattle Genetics, Bothell, WA, USA) for the treatment of relapsed or refractory CD30-expressing Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) (Younes et al, 2012) and anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) (Fanale et al, 2012; Pro et al, 2012). Here, ERBB2 is linked to anaplastic large cell lymphoma.