Reviewing the Immunotherapy Pipeline

The broad promise of immunetherapy and antibody-drug conjugation is targeted drug delivery to cancer cells while sparring the rest of the body. Recent US regulatory approval and strong launch for Seattle Genetics' (SGEN) Kadcyla represents the latest in a string of successful antibody-drug conjugates with a positive clinical impact. The large number of these compounds in Phase II trials and the heavy investment in early phase testing by a myriad of companies augurs for a wave data points in the near and medium terms.

Those drugs that received early approval (Adcetris and Kadcyla) will entrench themselves as the standard of care. New-comers will have to show a significant superiority to displace those drugs once their use becomes entrenched in the oncological community.

At this time, there are 32 similar compounds that have been registered in clinical development with a wide array of indications. Of note is that most compounds are based on technology owned by SGEN and Immunogen (IMGN). Of the major pharmaceutical companies, Abvie, AstraZeneca, Brystol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi Aventis have made the largest Antibody investments. Pfizer is making strides to join this group.

Compound	Sponsor	Indication	License From	Stage of Development
Adcetris	Seattle Genetics	Hodgkin's lymphoma, Leukemia	In-house	Marketed
Kadcyla (T-DM1)	Genentech	Breast variant	Immunogen	Marketed
CMC-544	Pfizer	Leukemia	In-house	Phase III
CDX-011	Celldex	Breast	Seattle Genetics	Phase II
IMGN901	Immunogen	Small cell lung	In-house	Phase II
SAR3419	Sanofi Aventis	Leukemia	Immunogen	Phase II
PSMA ADC	Progenics	Prostate	Seattle Genetics	Phase II
DCDT2980S	Genentech	Non-hodgkin's lymphoma, Leukemia	Seattle Genetics	Phase II
DCDS4501A	Genentech	Non-hodgkin's lymphoma, Leukemia	Seattle Genetics	Phase II

Selected Immunotherapy compounds in mid and late stage development.