The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and development of powerful immunotherapies for all cancers, announced today the publication of a report that provides a comprehensive, independent analysis of the global landscape of cancer immunotherapy, also known as immuno-oncology, including all agents from pre-clinical to marketed stages.

The report, titled, “Trends in the global immuno-oncology landscape,” appeared online today in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, a premium journal from Nature Publishing Group and an authoritative source of information in drug discovery and development. This report, which builds on CRI’s previously published landscape analysis of the entire field of immuno-oncology, highlights the major trends in the global immuno-oncology pipeline from September 2017 to September 2018.

“The quantitative analyses from this report reveal a 67% increase of the number of active immuno-oncology pipeline agents in a year, showing the unprecedented enthusiasm and commitment of the field,” said Jill O’Donnell-Tormey, PhD, chief executive officer and director of scientific affairs at the Cancer Research Institute.

“In addition to traditional powerhouses of multinational pharmaceutical companies, some new biotech companies, and even academic institutes have made significant progress in development in this space in both the pre-clinical and clinical phases,” noted Jun Tang, PhD, the corresponding and first author of the report and senior manager of the CRI Anna-Maria Kellen Clinical Accelerator. “It is very exciting to see that many new cancer immunotherapy targets are being evaluated, suggesting tremendous investment in pre-clinical and basic research in the field,” Tang added.

The CRI has created an interactive online dashboard based on this report and has made it available on the CRI website. Based on the large number of approvals of cancer immunotherapy, the report suggests the current excitement in the field is justified and will generate many paradigm-shifting therapies in the near future.

“CRI’s Clinical Accelerator program creates an independent space where philanthropic funding and clinical trial operation support facilitate the testing of agents from multiple companies in early phase, proof-of-concept clinical studies,” said Vanessa Hubbard-Lucey, PhD, director of the Clinical Accelerator program. “Those studies are carried out by the leading cancer immunotherapy experts across multiple academic centers, positioning our organization as an ideal third-party partner to harness the expanding innovation in this space,” added Hubbard-Lucey.

To access the interactive dashboard of the report, visit the CRI website at cancerresearch.org/io-cell-therapy.

—Newswise