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Pharma Tech Outlook | Thursday, November 18, 2021
Checkpoint inhibitors diminish immune suppressive mechanisms by restricting access to other checkpoint molecules, enhancing the immune system's response to cancer, and facilitating the elimination of malignant cells.
FREMONT, CA: Patients with cancer can choose from a variety of treatments. Several factors influence treatment options, including the kind and stage of a patient's cancer, overall health, and preferences. Several treatments use the immune system, the body's natural line of defense against infection and disease, to fight cancer.
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What is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy (also known as immuno-oncology) is a cancer treatment that uses the body's immune system to combat the disease. Some types of immunotherapy can be used to prevent disease (for example, cancer vaccinations), but the vast majority are used to treat illness. Immunotherapies assist the immune system in identifying, attacking, and killing malignant cells.
Immunomodulators
Immunomodulators regulate or "modulate" the immune system's activity. Immunomodulating drugs can be used to help fight cancer by adjusting the level of activity by activating or suppressing the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors, cytokines, agonists, and adjuvants are the four categories of immunomodulators.
Types of Immunomodulator
Checkpoint inhibitors
Checkpoint inhibitors can block immune checkpoints, and tumors frequently manipulate these checkpoints to protect themselves from the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors diminish immune suppressive mechanisms by restricting access to other checkpoint molecules, enhancing the immune system's response to cancer, and facilitating the elimination of malignant cells. The FDA authorized the first checkpoint inhibitor in 2011 for the treatment of melanoma.
Cytokines
Immune cells can communicate and mount a coordinated response to a specific antigen via these molecular ‘messengers.’ Characterizing cytokines to take advantage of their position in extensive signaling networks has been the focus of drug development efforts. Regulators have already approved several cytokine therapies; the first was a cytokine named interferon-alpha 2 (IFN-2) that was licensed in 1986.
Agonists
Agonists stimulate adaptive immune responses by activating pathways. They function in two ways:
By inducing the "activation" of killer T cells. Killer T cells, if activated, can directly target and kill cancer cells.
By causing innate immune cells to become more active. By expressing cancer markers and promoting T cell activity, these cells can help to coordinate overall immune responses against cancer.
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