A Tabulated Summary of Targeted and Biologic Therapies for Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract

The current pace of development of targeted agents in lung cancer is unprecedented. This rapid pace of development is facilitated by the identification of novel targets, development of new ways of inhibiting older and more familiar targets and some very innovative therapeutic engineering that allows us to inhibit multiple targets simultaneously. In this tabulated summary of over 320 targeted therapies currently in practice and in clinical trials for patients with lung cancer are listed. Given that the information included is constantly changing, the readers are encouraged to ascertain the current status of the ongoing clinical trials by checking the clinicaltrials.gov website. To facilitate this, a hyperlink for each agent is inserted in the left hand column of this reference tool. Compounds in pre-clinical development that have not yet entered clinical trials are not listed. Target therapies that are in clinical development but not enrolling lung cancer patients are also not included. Save for these exceptions the list is intended to be comprehensive. In conclusion, there are a plethora of novel agents currently in development for lung cancer. The emergence of these agents offers hope to a group of patients for whom progress has been slow until now. However dramatic improvements in survival have already been made in specific subsets of patients and this pace of advancements is only expected to accelerate dramatically for the foreseeable future.