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Rajasekaran N, Wang X, Ravindranathan S, Chin DJ, Tseng SY, Klakamp SL, Widmann K, Kapoor VN, Vexler V, Keegan P, Yao S, LaVallee T, Khare SD. Toripalimab, a therapeutic monoclonal anti-PD-1 antibody with high binding affinity to PD-1 and enhanced potency to activate human T cells. Cancer Immunol Immunother 2024; 73:60. [PMID: 38400933 PMCID: PMC10894093 DOI: 10.1007/s00262-024-03635-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/26/2024]
Abstract
Over the past decade, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors that target programmed death-1 (PD-1) have demonstrated significant clinical benefit particularly in patients with PD-L1 expressing tumors. Toripalimab is a humanized anti-PD-1 antibody, approved by FDA for first-line treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in combination with chemotherapy. In a post hoc analysis of phase 3 studies, toripalimab in combination with chemotherapy improved overall survival irrespective of PD-L1 status in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (JUPITER-02), advanced non-small cell lung cancer (CHOICE-01) and advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (JUPITER-06). On further characterization, we determined that toripalimab is molecularly and functionally differentiated from pembrolizumab, an anti-PD-1 mAb approved previously for treating a wide spectrum of tumors. Toripalimab, which binds the FG loop of PD-1, has 12-fold higher binding affinity to PD-1 than pembrolizumab and promotes significantly more Th1- and myeloid-derived inflammatory cytokine responses in healthy human PBMCs in vitro. In an ex vivo system employing dissociated tumor cells from treatment naïve non-small cell lung cancer patients, toripalimab induced several unique genes in IFN-γ and immune cell pathways, showed different kinetics of activation and significantly enhanced IFN-γ signature. Additionally, binding of toripalimab to PD-1 induced lower levels of SHP1 and SHP2 recruitment, the negative regulators of T cell activation, in Jurkat T cells ectopically expressing PD-1. Taken together, these data demonstrate that toripalimab is a potent anti-PD-1 antibody with high affinity PD-1 binding, strong functional attributes and demonstrated clinical activity that encourage its continued clinical investigation in several types of cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Xiaoguang Wang
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Sruthi Ravindranathan
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Daniel J Chin
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Su-Yi Tseng
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Scott L Klakamp
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Kate Widmann
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Varun N Kapoor
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Vladimir Vexler
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Patricia Keegan
- TopAlliance Biosciences, 9430 Key West Ave, Suite 125, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | - Sheng Yao
- TopAlliance Biosciences, 9430 Key West Ave, Suite 125, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
- Shanghai Junshi Biosciences, Shanghai, China
| | - Theresa LaVallee
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
| | - Sanjay D Khare
- Coherus Biosciences, 333 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 600, Redwood City, CA, 94065, USA
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