Why Are Leading Multinational Healthcare Companies Reposing Their Trust in Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors?

Key takeaways:

• Introduction
• Advantages of immune checkpoint inhibitors
• Rise of the industry in North America

One of the key focus areas of the innovations and advancements in the healthcare sector is the development of a foolproof cancer treatment regime. Over the years, various new cancer therapies have emerged, including cancer immunotherapy. Immunotherapy, in the simplest terms, refers to the treatment of an ailment by specifically activating or suppressing the patient’s immune response. In recent times, several types of cancer immunotherapies have been developed such as T-cell therapy, monoclonal antibodies therapy, cancer treatment vaccines, immune system modulators, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Of these, immune checkpoint inhibitors have become one of the most popular cancer treatment mechanisms.

Studying the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in treating cancers

The concept of immune checkpoints was first discovered by Dr. Jim Allison in 1995; these checkpoints act as regulators of the immune system and prevent the immune system from attacking and destroying the cells arbitrarily. To achieve this, immune checkpoints bind with partner proteins to send signals to the immune system to avoid attacking the cells. Once the signal is received by T-cells, the main component of the immune system, the auto-control mode is activated which prevents the attack on the body’s healthy cells. In the case of tumor cells, however, specialized drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors are administered to the patient which block the binding process between the checkpoints and partner proteins. As the immune system does not get the signal, it attacks the cancer cells.

Immunotherapy drugs developed to inhibit the binding of checkpoint and partner proteins primarily target proteins such as CTLA-4, PD-1, and PD-L1. Using these drugs, medical researchers have been able to treat various types of cancers including breast, colon, lung, rectal, liver, etc. Recently, researchers from Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center studied Nivolumab, a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor. The study offered some interesting insights; the checkpoint inhibitor was able to bring down the spread of lung cancer in 20 of the 31 patients and the effect of the immunotherapy drug lasted for more than one year.

A similar study was conducted by the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas; the medical practitioners administered CTLA-4 and PD-1 inhibitors in patients suffering from metastatic renal cancer. The effect of the drug lasted for around 25 months in these patients, and the intensity of the spread of the cancer was also reduced. Cancer specialists in the Medical Oncology Melanoma Program have also positively reviewed this type of cancer immunotherapy.

Well-developed healthcare infrastructure to play a massive role in the growth of the industry in North America

Over the last few decades, countries like the US and Canada have allocated massive funds from their government budgets to develop advanced healthcare infrastructure. Along with this, the governments in these countries have also launched dedicated initiatives to counter the rising incidence of cancer among the people. As a result of these policies, state-of-the-art cancer treatment technologies have been developed in these countries that offer comprehensive cancer care regimes. The immune checkpoint inhibitors industry is anticipated to witness huge growth owing to these factors.

At the same time, various private healthcare companies have invested heavily in R&D activities to develop innovative cancer treatments such as checkpoint inhibitors and other cancer immunotherapies. Many companies have even collaborated with their peers to develop modern cancer therapies; for instance, recently, BioNTech, a leading biotechnology company, and OncoC4, a pharmaceutical company, announced a collaboration in March 2023. Under this collaboration, both companies have committed to pooling their resources together to develop and commercialize a novel anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody drug viz., ONC-392. Thus, concerted efforts by the government sector and private companies are expected to play a huge role in the growth of this industry in North America in the coming period.

To conclude, the growth of the immune checkpoint inhibitor industry can be attributed to the growing popularity of cancer immunotherapy regimes. The success of several pilot projects undertaken by different cancer institutes has increased the trust in these treatment mechanisms. The role of governments and private healthcare companies has proved to be vital in expanding the scope of this sector.

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