The Hidden Barriers Holding Back Cancer’s Most Promising Treatments
In 2010, the world of cancer treatment witnessed something remarkable. A new class of drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors showed unprecedented results in cancers that had long defied treatment. By unleashing the body’s own immune system against cancer cells, these treatments achieved what seemed impossible: long-term remission in patients with advanced melanoma who previously faced mere months to live.
This wasn’t just another incremental advance in cancer treatment. It represented a fundamental shift in how we approach the disease. Rather than bombing cancer cells with toxic chemicals or radiation, we learned to remove the molecular cloaking that cancer uses to hide from the immune system. The results were nothing short of revolutionary.
But something curious has happened in the decade since. The breakneck pace of innovation has slowed to a crawl. While checkpoint inhibitors and CAR T-cell therapy (where immune cells are engineered to fight cancer) have become standard treatments for many cancers, the broader revolution we hoped for hasn’t materialized. Most cancer patients still do not get immunotherapy. Attempts to extend these treatments to more patients and other cancers or combine them with existing drugs have largely disappointed…
