Biocad

A domestically developed checkpoint antibody has now produced a positive phase 3 overall-survival result in lung cancer, which is the strongest evidence yet that Russian oncology can supply its own immunotherapy rather than import it. The trial ran in Russia with sites in China, Hungary and Slovakia and has not been reviewed by the European Medicines Agency or the United States Food and Drug Administration.

This is the evidence on which Russia licensed a PD-1 antibody of its own making, which matters because it is the reason immunotherapy remained available in Russian melanoma clinics on domestic supply. It is a single-country randomised phase 2 with no comparator against an established PD-1 antibody, so it does not establish equivalence with nivolumab or pembrolizumab.