Advances of FDA Approved Drugs that Target PD-1 and PD-L1 for Cancer Immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer is a lethal disease and is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Though there have been enormous leaps in the field of cancer treatment and prolonged patient survival rate, new therapies are still in high demand. Cancer immunotherapy is an emerging field in cancer treatment especially for patients with late stage cancers that had few options previously. Cancer immunotherapy is composed of CAR-T cell therapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), and cancer vaccines. ICIs are monoclonal antibodies, which are used to block certain immune checkpoint from binding with tumor cells, preventing the shutdown of the T-cell. As of now, there have been 6 ICIs approved for many different cancer indications that target the proteins, PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 that have significantly increased patient response rates in recent years. In this review, the concept, history, recent advances in ICIs, and existing commercial drugs and their response rates in different cancer indications were summarised; the advantages and disadvantages of ICI treatment in cancer were also discussed