Discovery of PD-1 Pathway Biomarkers of Target Engagement

The PD-1 pathway has transformed the development of immunotherapies as a means to reawaken the immune system to target cancer cells. Clinically, however, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the response to PD-1 based therapeutics across cancer patients, irrespective of the underlying tumor. There is some data to suggest that tumor burden mutational burden or expression of PD-1 may be proxies for treatment response, but these are still clinically considered relatively poor predictors of which individuals will benefit from anti-PD-1 therapies.

In this case study, we share how Sapient used its Human Biology Database to discover specific biomarkers in circulation that robustly associate with genetic variants present in the PD-1 pathway, and further mapped how these pharmacodynamic markers may be influencing underlying treatment response across individuals.

Watch the video to learn how a single PD-1 pathway biomarker of target engagement was found to directly increase with exposure to anti-PD-1 therapy and is associated with increased drug response.