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Trial watch

The clinical trial landscape for PD1/PDL1 immune checkpoint inhibitors

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 17, pages 854–855 (2018)Cite this article

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Since the first clinical trial to test a PD1-targeted monoclonal antibody (mAb) — nivolumab — was initiated in 2006, six mAbs targeting either PD1 or its ligand PDL1 have been approved by the FDA to treat 14 cancer types and one histology-agnostic indication. Anti-PD1/PDL1 agents serve as the backbone of the expanding approaches in the immuno-oncology field. Meanwhile, the growth in the number of active clinical trials testing anti-PD1/PDL1 agents has been dramatic, increasing from 1 in 2006 to 2,250 as of September 2018. The Cancer Research Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to research in cancer immunotherapy for more than 65 years, analysed the current landscape of clinical trials evaluating these agents and compared the current landscape with the previous one surveyed by us in September 2017 (Ann. Oncol. 29, 84–89; 2017).

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Figure 1: The clinical trial landscape for PD1/PDL1 immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Figure 2: Recruitment rates for trials involving anti-PD1/PDL1 therapies.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank D. Patel from IQVIA for supporting this report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anna-Maria Kellen Clinical Accelerator, Cancer Research Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Jun Tang, Jia Xin Yu & Vanessa M. Hubbard-Lucey

  2. IQVIA, Durham, NC, USA

    Svetoslav T. Neftelinov, Jeffrey P. Hodge & Yunqing Lin

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  1. Jun Tang
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  2. Jia Xin Yu
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  3. Vanessa M. Hubbard-Lucey
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  4. Svetoslav T. Neftelinov
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  5. Jeffrey P. Hodge
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  6. Yunqing Lin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Tang.

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Competing interests

JT, JXY, and VHL are employees of Cancer Research Institute and claim no conflicts of interests.

STN, JPH, YL and DP are employees of IQVIA and claim no conflicts of interests.

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Tang, J., Yu, J., Hubbard-Lucey, V. et al. The clinical trial landscape for PD1/PDL1 immune checkpoint inhibitors. Nat Rev Drug Discov 17, 854–855 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.210

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