Immune Checkpoint Blockade: The New Big Idea In Cancer

29 Apr 2013

• By Shirley Haley

Biologics that target immune checkpoints co-opted by cancer resistance have been significantly de-risked by the success of Bristol’s immunotherapy Yervoy and the progress of its Phase III candidate nivolumab. With six companies now testing candidates in the clinic, the class promises to have a big impact on oncology over the next several years, with the possibility of a next-generation approval by 2015.

The radical proposition that cancer may not be as much a disease of genetic mutations as it is an immunological disorder captured the imagination of attendees who packed sessions devoted to the science of immune checkpoint blockade and the drugs being developed in that class at the recent American Association of Cancer Research annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Through that immunology lens, “immunotherapy then is a common denominator which takes advantage of the fact that the many mutations...