CD200: A Solid Argument
The two companies developing anti-CD200 antibodies to treat blood cancers-Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Trillium Therapeutics Inc.-might have had a new indication land in their laps. In a paper published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation,1 researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) reported biomarker and mechanistic evidence that targeting CD200 could restore a latent antitumor immune response in melanoma patients.
The paper not only suggests that the use of CD200 antibodies could be expanded from liquid cancers into the solid-tumor setting but also hints that CD200 immunotherapeutics could have better side-effect profiles than antibodies against CTLA-4 (CD152), which are the most advanced melanoma compounds in the clinic...