Mesothelin-Targeted Immunotherapy Pipeline Review

Target: Mesothelin

Product Category: Antibody; Cells; Vaccine

This product provides basic information on immunotherapy candidates in research and development targeting mesothelin.

This product consists of:

• Competitors described in a tabular format covering drug code/INN, target(s)/MoA, class of compound, product category, indication(s) & R&D stage.
• Project History with links to source of information (press release, homepage, abstracts, presentations, annual reports etc).
• One-month online access to La Merie Publishing’s database for immunotherapy candidates targeting mesothelin (prerequisite: access to internet).

This product is delivered on the very same day of purchase by e-mail containing competitor and project history reports in pdf format and database credentials. Reports are prepared on the same day.

Mesothelin, is a 40 kD glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored cell surface glycoprotein overexpressed in many cancers, potentially involved in adhesion and metastasis. The well-known interacting partner of mesothelin is CA125/MUC16, a member of the mucin family of glycoproteins which is expressed in ovarian cancer and malignant mesothelioma Given the limited expression of mesothelin in normal tissues and overexpression in several tumor cells, mesothelin presents a desirable target for tumor-specific therapy.

Mesothelin expression has been identified in approximately 30% of cancers, including mesothelioma, ovarian, pancreatic, gastric, and non–small cell lung tumors, uterine malignancies as well as cholangiocarcinoma. In high grade ovarian cancer, mesothelin is overexpressed in 75% to 80% of patients. Normal expression of mesothelin is on mesothelial cells lining pleura, peritoneum, and pericardium. Low expression may be found on some other tissues, but anti-mesothelin antibodies or antibody-toxin conjugates have not shown much toxicity.

Although several first generation drug modalities used for targeting mesothelin eventually have failed in clinical studies, such as immunotoxins, thorium-targeted therapies, antibody-drug conjugates, chimeric antigen receptor T cells, natural killer cells as well as T-cell engaging antibodies, improved next generation versions of such drug modalities have been developed and are applied to novel immunotherapy candidates for mesothelin-expressing cancers.