JCES 01.07 Ongoing Trials in China on Checkpoint Inhibitors and Other Immunotherapies

Abstract

Immunotherapy gets the breakthrough after almost 100 years of silence. PD1/PD-L1 inhibitors as the representative has been extensively studied in various human malignant tumors and get promising long term response with relatively fewer adverse event. The first PD1 inhibitor indication was approved for melanoma in Japan on July 2014. By the end of December 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration had approved several PD-1 pathway blockade treatments including nivolumab, pembrolizumab and atezolizumab using in first line and second line of NSCLC. But In China, no PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors have received marketing approval from the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) until July 2017. One sides, IO arena faces intense in-class competition from both MNC (Multi-National Corporation) and domestic pharmaceutical company in China. Now there are 20 IO antibodies from 7 MNCs and 10 pharmaceutical companies in China. But all the antibodies only confined to PD1/PD-L1 and CTLA4, no other hot IO drugs such as IDO or Lag3 et al. In the field of innovation, China is several years behind research in other areas of the world. The other sides various clinical trials are actively investigating MNC and domestic drugs in China. Between January 1, 2013 and April 6, 2017, Clinical Trials.-gov registered 270 international clinical trials using PD-1/PD-L1 therapies for NSCLC (e.g.nivolumab, pembrolizumab, atezolizumab, and durvalumab). These 270 trials included 61 studies that involved East Asian sites and 14studies that involved Chinese sites (12 multinational trials and 2 trials that only evaluated Chinese patients). These trials cover from second line and first line to adjuvant therapy in NSCLC. Most of the ongoing MNC NSCLC clinical trials joined in global study design that may accelerate the patient access to PD1/PD-L1. But Chinese population has relatively high rates of hepatitis B virus infection and much higher proportion of EGFR mutation. The delightful changing recently is some studies emerging to consider the characteristics of the Chinese or Asian populations. Domestic company clinical trials focus on GI (Gastrointestinal) and only 1 NSCLC study in China. Chinese clinical trials using IO remain in their early stages, and further efforts are needed to improve the design of future clinical trials. Meanwhile, the other hot IO drug phase I study need speed up in China. ongoing clinical trials, Immunotherapy, China