Drug discovery and molecular mechanisms of drug action
Efforts are underway to identify the molecular reasons why some patients exhibit an enduring response to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. These patients have been called “exceptional” responders or “super” responders. Some patients that have cancers with a lot of DNA mutations (high mutational burden) are better responders to immune checkpoint therapy compared with patients that … Read more
A main goal of current research and clinical trials is to expand the number of patients that benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitors. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that combination therapies are the future for these immunotherapies in treating cancer. There are many clinical trials that combine an immunotherapy with conventional chemotherapy (drugs that kill … Read more
Some cancer immunotherapy drugs turn off a signaling pathway; others turn on a signaling pathway (1). FDA-approved immunotherapy drugs that target the PD-L1/PD-1 or CTLA-4/B-7 immune checkpoints function as antagonists to block immune signaling pathways. Investigational immunotherapy drugs that target GITRL/GITR function as agonists to activate an immune signaling pathway. Investigational drugs that target OX40L/OX40 … Read more
Better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control the adaptive immune system will lead to better immunotherapies for cancer patients or patients with other diseases related to inappropriate immune responses. Two of the processes that inhibit T cell function are called immune checkpoint pathways. New research reveals that these pathways involve many cells of the … Read more
There are now many types of anti-cancer drugs that target the immune system, including those that override the immune system’s natural regulatory processes. These processes function as the brakes on the immune system. The FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors are Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Opdivo (nivolumab), Tecentriq (atezolizumab), and Yervoy (ipilimumab). Several investigational drugs [MK-4166, GWN323, MS-986156, INCAGN01876, … Read more