With approximately 1639 drugs currently in clinical trials across the globe, immuno-oncology treatment — along with the personalised cancer vaccine — is on track to become the next breakthrough in oncology.1,2 Immunotherapy strives to enable the detection of a cancer mutation as an invader, thereby allowing the immune system to attack and eliminate a mutation in the same way as it would a pathogen. The ability to enable the immune system as the main defence in the fight against cancer has been in development for quite some time now, with the first monoclonal antibody, ipilimumab, gaining approval in 2011 for the treatment of melanoma.3 Since then, six have been approved, including CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4) inhibitor (ipilimumab), programmed cell death protein (PD-1) inhibitors (nivolumab, pembrolizumab) and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors (atezolizumab, avelumab and durvalumab).3 This growing field of oncology treatment is predicted to achieve steady growth going into the next decade.
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