Unconventional immunotherapy with an unconventional target

Article type: Review Article

Authors: Glassy, Mark C.

Affiliations: Translational Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, Moores Cancer Center, CA, USA | E-mail: markglassy@aol.com

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Translational Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, University of California, San Diego, Moores Cancer Center, CA, USA. E-mail: markglassy@aol.com

Abstract: Pritumumab, a natural human IgG1 kappa antibody was obtained from a regional draining lymph node of a patient with cervical carcinoma through traditional hybridoma technology. Specificity analysis of the target antigen, an altered form of vimentin called, ecto-domain vimentin (EDV), shows it to be limited to cell surface expression on cancer cells. Clinically, 249 brain cancer patients were treated with a low dose pritumumab regimen, either at 1 mg once a week or 1 mg twice a week, and of those evaluated overall response rates of between 25–30% were seen with several complete and partial responses. A clinical trial assessing higher doses of pritumumab as a therapeutic for brain cancer is expected to begin this year. Overall, these data together suggest pritumumab is suitable for further development as an anti-tumor therapeutic.

Keywords: Pritumumab, immunotherapy, surface vimentin, anti-idiotype

Journal: Human Antibodies, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 253-258, 2020