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Immune checkpoint inhibitors are antibodies against CTLA-4, PD-1 or PD-L1 that release the brakes on T cells so they attack the cancer. They are approved in more than 20 tumour types and produce lasting, sometimes curative responses that chemotherapy rarely does, but most patients do not respond and autoimmune side effects are the cost.
Anti-CTLA-4 (ipilimumab), anti-PD-1 (pembrolizumab, nivolumab, cemiplimab, dostarlimab, toripalimab, tislelizumab), anti-PD-L1 (atezolizumab, durvalumab, avelumab), anti-LAG-3 (relatlimab). Approved across >20 tumour types and tumour-agnostically for MSI-H/dMMR and TMB-high. Moving earlier: neoadjuvant/perioperative in melanoma, NSCLC, TNBC (KEYNOTE-522), bladder, and MSI-H colorectal (where dostarlimab produced 100% complete responses in rectal cancer without surgery). Immune-related adverse events are the cost.
Blocking inhibitory receptor-ligand interactions restores T-cell priming (CTLA-4) and effector function (PD-1).
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Adebrelimab is Hengrui's PD-L1 antibody, approved in China for first-line extensive-stage small cell lung cancer on the CAPSTONE-1 trial.
A PD-L1 blocker used in lung, liver, and bladder cancer. In 2026 it became the first drug approved based on a blood test showing leftover cancer after bladder surgery.
Avelumab is a PD-L1 blocker given as maintenance after chemotherapy for advanced bladder cancer, which lengthened survival by about seven months.
Benmelstobart is Chia Tai Tianqing's PD-L1 antibody, approved in China in 2024 for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer in combination with anlotinib and chemotherapy.
A Chinese two-armed antibody that blocks PD-1 and CTLA-4 together, approved in China for cervical cancer and extending survival even in PD-L1-negative tumours.
Camrelizumab is Jiangsu Hengrui's humanised PD-1 antibody, approved in China for oesophageal, liver and lung cancer but not in the US, where its liver cancer combination with rivoceranib drew complete response letters in 2024 and 2025 over manufacturing and inspection issues. Its signature side effect is reactive cutaneous capillary endothelial proliferation, a skin reaction seen in most patients.
A Chinese immunotherapy-plus-anti-angiogenic pill combination that clearly beat sorafenib in liver cancer, yet remains unapproved in the US after three manufacturing-related rejections.
A PD-1 blocker that is the standard for advanced skin squamous cell carcinoma, and in 2025 became the first adjuvant immunotherapy for it.
Cosibelimab is a PD-L1 antibody approved in December 2024 for advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, offering a third immunotherapy choice.
Dostarlimab is a PD-1 blocker famous for making rectal cancer disappear without surgery in every patient with a mismatch-repair-deficient tumour.
A PD-L1 blocker that became standard after chemoradiation for stage III lung cancer, and now in bladder, biliary, and gastric cancers.
Envafolimab is the first PD-L1 antibody given as a quick injection under the skin rather than an infusion, approved in China for advanced tumours with mismatch-repair deficiency.
An enzyme blocker meant to stop tumours starving T cells of tryptophan. Its 2018 phase 3 failure ended an entire class overnight.
Favezelimab is Merck's LAG-3 antibody, tested with pembrolizumab in phase 3 trials in colorectal cancer and classical Hodgkin lymphoma; the colorectal trial did not succeed.
Fianlimab is Regeneron's LAG-3 blocking antibody, paired with the PD-1 blocker cemiplimab. A 60% phase 1 response rate in untreated melanoma prompted phase 3 trials, but the metastatic trial against pembrolizumab missed its progression endpoint in 2026.
QL1706 is Qilu Pharmaceutical's PD-1 plus CTLA-4 antibody mixture, approved in China in 2024 for recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer after platinum chemotherapy.
Ipilimumab was the first checkpoint inhibitor (2011), and proved the immune system could be unleashed against cancer.
Ivermectin is a worm and parasite medicine that is being tested as an add-on to immunotherapy in two small early trials. No trial has shown that it treats any cancer, and people who have dosed themselves outside a trial have ended up in hospital with seizures or liver damage.
A Chinese bispecific that beat Keytruda head-to-head on progression-free survival in lung cancer, the first drug ever to do so.
Nivolumab was the second PD-1 blocker and is often combined with ipilimumab. Long-term data show about half of advanced melanoma patients alive at 10 years on the combination.
Pembrolizumab is a PD-1 blocking antibody approved in more than 40 settings, from melanoma and lung cancer to the first tumour-agnostic approval for mismatch-repair-deficient tumours in 2017, and before and after surgery in triple-negative breast cancer. A subcutaneous form arrived in 2025, and it is the backbone partner for ADCs and personalised neoantigen vaccines.
Penpulimab is a Chinese PD-1 antibody approved in the US in 2025 for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, the second after toripalimab.
Pucotenlimab is Lepu Biopharma's PD-1 antibody, approved in China in 2022 for mismatch-repair-deficient solid tumours and for melanoma, and in a phase 3 trial in colorectal cancer.
Opdualag combines relatlimab, the first drug targeting the LAG-3 immune brake, with nivolumab for melanoma.
Retifanlimab is a PD-1 antibody approved for Merkel cell carcinoma and, with chemotherapy, as the first immunotherapy standard for advanced anal cancer.
Retlirafusp alfa is Hengrui's PD-L1 and TGF-beta bifunctional antibody, in phase 3 trials with chemotherapy in gastric cancer after the Western class leader bintrafusp alfa failed.
Serplulimab is a Chinese PD-1 antibody with the largest survival gain of any first-line small-cell lung cancer immunotherapy trial, approved in China, Europe, and the UK but not yet the US.
Sintilimab is Innovent's PD-1 antibody, approved in China since 2018 for Hodgkin lymphoma and then, on the ORIENT trials, for first-line lung, liver, oesophageal and stomach cancer. In 2022 the FDA rejected its lung cancer application because a China-only trial against chemotherapy did not fit US practice, defining the agency's stance on single-country data.
Socazolimab is Lee's Pharmaceutical's PD-L1 antibody, in phase 3 trials in China for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer and recurrent cervical cancer.
Sugemalimab is CStone's PD-L1 antibody, approved in China for first-line lung cancer with chemotherapy and after chemoradiotherapy in stage III disease, and the first China-developed PD-L1 antibody to win European approval.
An immune-brake blocker that looked excellent in a phase 2 lung cancer trial and then failed every phase 3.
A Chinese-developed PD-1 blocker, engineered to avoid a side-channel that may blunt other PD-1 drugs, now approved in the US and EU for oesophageal and stomach cancer.
A Chinese-developed PD-1 blocker that became the first immunotherapy approved in the US for nasopharyngeal cancer.
Tremelimumab is AstraZeneca's CTLA-4 antibody, given as a single priming dose with durvalumab and chemotherapy in lung and liver cancer.
Visugromab is CatalYm's antibody against GDF-15, a tumour-made signal that both blocks immune cells and causes cancer wasting; it is in a phase 3 trial with PD-1 blockade after durable responses in patients whose cancers had stopped responding to checkpoint inhibitors.
Zimberelimab is a PD-1 antibody approved in China in 2021 for relapsed classical Hodgkin lymphoma, and the checkpoint partner in Arcus and Gilead's Western trials of the TIGIT antibody domvanalimab.
The 48 most recent of 78 papers; see them all →
For patients with advanced melanoma, immunotherapy offers a realistic chance of long-term survival and probably cure, and the ten-year data show that patients who are alive and progression-free at three years rarely die of melanoma afterwards. Nivolumab plus ipilimumab gives the best long-term results but at a high price in serious side effects; nivolumab alone or nivolumab plus relatlimab are alternatives for patients at lower risk or with autoimmune concerns. The trial is also a caution about surrogate endpoints: the survival plateau took years to become visible.
For the first time a new drug has beaten pembrolizumab, the global first-line standard, in a randomised lung cancer trial, and it did so by combining checkpoint blockade with anti-angiogenesis in one molecule. For patients outside China nothing changes yet: the drug is not approved in the West, the trial was single-country, and survival benefit has not been shown. If confirmed in the global HARMONi-3 and HARMONi-7 trials, PD-1 x VEGF bispecifics could replace PD-1 antibodies as the immunotherapy backbone.
After bladder removal, a blood test can now tell who needs immunotherapy and who can safely be spared it. This is the model for MRD-guided adjuvant therapy across cancers: treat the blood-positive, watch the blood-negative.
For mismatch repair-deficient rectal cancer, six months of a single antibody now replaces chemotherapy, radiotherapy and an operation, and the same appears to be true for early-stage mismatch repair-deficient cancers of other organs.
Evidence that the immune environment of gallbladder cancer differs by population even when the mutations do not; a reason to report gallbladder cancer and its regions separately in immunotherapy trials rather than as one biliary subgroup.
The strongest human evidence that a cancer vaccine can make durable T cells in a tumour with few mutations; the randomised phase 2 IMCODE003 (260 patients, primary completion listed for January 2031) is the test of whether that translates into fewer relapses.
Platinum and immunotherapy are now consensus for early triple-negative disease; the open votes have moved to who can safely receive less.
Patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer who complete chemoradiotherapy without progression should now be offered up to two years of durvalumab consolidation, which extends life by almost two years on average. This is the first survival improvement for limited-stage disease since twice-daily radiotherapy and prophylactic cranial irradiation, and small-cell lung cancer is no longer a disease where immunotherapy gives only marginal gains.
Query for this technology: (TITLE:"immune checkpoint inhibitor" OR ABSTRACT:"immune checkpoint inhibitor" OR TITLE:"immune checkpoint inhibitors" OR ABSTRACT:"immune checkpoint inhibitors" OR TITLE:"PD-1 blockade" OR ABSTRACT:"PD-1 blockade" OR TITLE:"PD-L1 blockade" OR ABSTRACT:"PD-L1 blockade"). Results are unfiltered search hits about Immune checkpoint inhibitors, not a curated reading list.
Shares Targeting the tumour's own microbes, A Prospective, Phase II Trial Using ctDNA to Initiate Post-operation Boost Therapy After NAC in TNBC, A Study of Tetrathiomolybdate (TM) Plus Capecitabine, A Trial of Camrelizumab Plus Nab-paclitaxel and Levocetirizine in Metastatic or Recurrent TNBC.
Shares A Phase II Study of Biomarker-Guided De-escalation Using Anthracycline-Free Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy in Early-Stage Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) P, A Study of Dostarlimab in Combination With Carboplatin-paclitaxel in Japanese Participants With Primary Advanced or Recurrent Endometrial Cancer, Immune Induction Strategies to Improve Response to Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) Patients, Neoadjuvant mFOLFOX6 Chemotherapy Combined With Anti-PD-1 Therapy in MSS/pMMR Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer (FIRM02 Study).
Shares A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Serplulimab in Combination With Chemotherapy and Concurrent Radiotherapy in Patients With Limited-Stage, A Phase 2 Study of EIK1001 in Combo With Pembrolizumab and Chemotherapy in Patients With Stage 4 NSCLC, A Phase II Study of Biomarker-Guided De-escalation Using Anthracycline-Free Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy in Early-Stage Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) P, A Study of AK138D1 Alone or in Combination With Ivonescimab in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Shares A Study of BL-B01D1 in Combination With Tislelizumab ±5-Fluorouracil Versus Platinum-Based Chemotherapy Plus Tislelizumab as First-line Treatment in Patients With Unresectable, Locally Advanced Recurrent or Metastatic Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma(PANKU-Esophagus02), A Study of AK104/Placebo Combined With Chemoradiotherapy For The Treatment of Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer, A Trial of SHR-A2102 With Adebrelimab With or Without Other Antitumor Therapy in Advanced or Metastatic Esophageal Cancer, CALLA.
Shares A Phase I/II, Open-label Study to Investigate the Safety, Tolerability, PK, and Preliminary Efficacy of FB849, A Study of Pembrolizumab (+) Berahyaluronidase Alfa (MK-3475A) (Pembrolizumab Formulated With Berahyaluronidase Alfa (MK-5180)) in Japanese Participants With Recurrent or Metastatic Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma (R/M cSCC) or Locally Advanced (LA) Unresectable cSCC (MK-3475A-E39), ABL103 in Combination With Pembrolizumab, With or Without Taxane in Advanced or Metastatic Solid Tumors, BC3195 in Combination With Pembrolizumab in Participants With Locally Advanced or Metastatic Solid Tumors.
Shares Phase II Study of Neoadjuvant Dostarlimab in Patients With Untreated T3-4N0-2 or Stage III pMMR/MSS Resectable Colon Cancer, Tolecizumab Plus Chemoimmunotherapy for pMMR/MSS Locally Advanced Colon Adenocarcinoma, A Clinical Study on the Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer at the Second-line or Beyond., A Phase Ib/II Study to Evaluate HLX43 Combined With HLX07 or Serplulimab in Patients With Advanced or Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.
Shares Clinical Study Evaluating the Safety, Tolerability, and Preliminary Efficacy of LM-108 ± Penpulimab+Chemotherapy in Advanced Solid Tumors - Cohort C, Safety, Pharmacokinetics and Clinical Activity of AZD0171 in Combination With Durvalumab and Chemotherapy in Locally Advanced or Metastatic Solid Tumours, A Phase III Study of Ivonescimab + Chemo With/Without AK117 in Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer, A Phase III Study With THIO + Cemiplimab vs Chemotherapy as 3rd Line Treatment in Advanced/Metastatic NSCLC.
Shares A Multicenter, Randomized Controlled Phase II Study of Short-Course Radiotherapy Followed by Sequential PD-1 Inhibitor and FOLFOX Chemotherapy Versus Long-Cours, A Prospective, Multicenter, Single-Arm Phase II Exploratory Study of Serplulimab Combined With Oncolytic Virus H101, Short-Course Radiotherapy, and XELOX Chemot, A Series of Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy Combined With Immunotherapy for Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer, A Single-arm Phase II Clinical Study of Camrelizumab Combined With Long-course Chemoradiotherapy for Total Neoadjuvant Therapy in Locally Advanced Low pMMR/MSS.
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Detects loss of heterozygosity in the HLA locus of a tumour, an immune-escape mechanism relevant to immunotherapy.