What does the future hold for immunotherapy in cancer?

Cancer Immunotherapy—a therapeutic strategy of harnessing the immune system to recognize and clear cancer—was named by Science magazine as ‘Breakthrough of the Year’ in 2013 (1). This was largely attributable to clinical successes in metastatic melanoma and lung cancer, whereby a class of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint antibodies demonstrated an improvement in survival outcomes compared to standard therapy. Since then, three immune checkpoint antibodies have been approved by the Food and Drug Association (FDA) and other regulatory agencies for the treatment of both metastatic melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).