Anti-Cancer immunotherapy: Immunomodulating agents in clinical development

Immune response often fails to control tumor development due to the activation of inefficient lymphocyte or tolerization mechanisms. The goal of immunotherapeutics is to reverse the balance between the immune response and tumor growth. Targeting immune checkpoints involved in the activation or inhibition pathways of specific immune response is an emerging strategy. It has shown promising results for metastatic melanoma with antibodies targeting CTLA4, and more recently with antibodies targeting PD- 1/PD-L1 in melanoma and also other types of tumor. Therapies targeting B7 family members (CTLA4, PD-1, PD-L1/2, etc.) are the most advanced in clinical development, but molecules belonging to TNF-R family (OX40, CD40, GITR, CD137, etc.) also appear to be promising. In this article, we present a review of the different pathways involved in immune response modulation and corresponding therapeutic agents under clinical development.