Enhancing anti-CD274 (PD-L1) targeting through combinatorial immunotherapy with bispecific antibodies and fusion proteins: from preclinical to phase II clinical trials

INTRODUCTION: Immune checkpoint inhibitors have achieved great success in treatment of many different types of cancer. Programmed cell death protein ligand 1 (PD-L1, CD274) is a major immunosuppressive immune checkpoint and a target for several already approved monoclonal antibodies. Despite this, novel strategies are under development, as the overall response remains low.

AREAS COVERED: In this review, an overview of the current biomarkers for response to PD-L1 inhibitor treatment is given, followed by a discussion of potential novel biomarkers, including tumor mutational burden and circulating tumor DNA. Combinatorial immunotherapy is a potential novel strategy to increase response to PD-L1 inhibitor treatment and currently, several interesting bispecific antibodies as well as bispecific fusion proteins are undergoing early clinical investigation. We focus on substances targeting PD-L1 and a secondary target, and a secondary immunomodulatory target like CTLA-4, TIGIT or CD47.

EXPERT OPINION: Overall, the presented studies show anti-tumor activity of these combinatorial immunotherapeutic approaches. However, still relatively low response rates suggest a need for better biomarkers.