In general, the prognosis for liver cancer is poor because patients are often diagnosed with liver cancer in advanced stage, while its cancer cells can still survive in hypoxia.^1,2 In a recent study conducted by Wong CL and colleagues from the Department of Pathology, School of Clinical Medicine, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong, published in Nature Communications, it was found that hypoxia-induced macropinocytosis is a new metabolic mechanism in liver cancer cells, by which causing the engulfment of extracellular fluid and the subsequent protein digestion to support the unlimited growth of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).¹ The breakthrough discovery indicates that inhibiting hypoxia-induced macropinocytosis could be a novel and effective therapeutic approach for HCC.¹ This study could also be applied to other solid cancer types with hypoxia.¹

Cancer is a leading cause of death globally, claiming almost 10 million deaths in 2020.¹ Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women, with nearly 2.3 million new breast cancer diagnoses in 2020 worldwide.¹ Gene-expression profiling has identified distinct subtypes of cancer, among which there are subpopulations expressing specific markers.² According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor 2-negative (HR+/HER2-) is the most prevalent breast cancer.³ Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) are good drug targets for cancer, owing to their role in cell cycle progression.⁴ Ribociclib is one of the 3 inhibitors of CDK4/6 approved in combination with fulvestrant for treating HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancers in adults, based on a series of phase 3 clinical trials called MONALEESA, which tested ribociclib along with different drug partners in HR+/HER2- cancer patients.^4-7 The MONALEESA-2 study showed that progression-free survival (PFS) was significantly longer with first-line ribociclib + letrozole than with placebo + letrozole.⁷ The MONALEESA-7 trial also showed significantly longer median overall survival (mOS) in ribociclib in combination with the endocrine therapy (ET) vs. the placebo arm in postmenopausal HR+/HER2- cancer patients.⁶ Similarly, the primary MONALEESA-3 trial and its subsequent analysis Demonstrated that ribociclib + fulvestrant had significant OS benefit as compared with placebo in HR+/HER2- patients advanced breast cancer patients.^5,6 In a recently held European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Breast Cancer Congress, Neven, et al. presented an updated exploratory mOS analysis result with the longest follow-up of the MONALEESA 3 study to date.⁸

Risankizumab receives an additional third indication approved by the United States (US) Food andDrug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease (CD) inadult patients, supported by data from 2 induction clinical trials, namely ADVANCE and MOTIVATE;and 1 maintenance clinical trial called FORTIFY.^1,2 Risankizumab is an interleukin-23 (IL-23) antagonistwhich targets IL-23A, directly inhibiting the IL-23-specific pathway.3 Though previous studies of IL-23inhibitors, such as ustekinumab, demonstrated efficacy and safety in treating CD, they were not superiorto the anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antibody adalimumab, and that severely active CD patients maynot respond to the treatment.³ Thus, exploration of treatment options against IL-23A is on the rise.³

Lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel), a cell-based gene therapy was approved as a second-line treatmentof relapsed or refractory (rr) large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) in adult patients by the United States (US)Food and Drug Administration (FDA).¹ Liso-cel is an autologous and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T)therapy that specifically directs cytotoxicity to CD19 antigen-presenting B cells.2,3 First approved inFebruary 2021, liso-cel treats certain types of LBCL, including diffuse LBCL (DLBCL), high-grade B-celllymphoma, primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma grade 3B.^2,3 Two new indicationshave been given to liso-cel for the LBCL treatment in patients who have refractory disease to thefirst-line immunochemotherapy, or refractory disease or relapse after the first-line immunochemotherapy^.1,3The approval of liso-cel was supported by the TRANSFORM phase 3 study, which illustrated the efficacyand safety of the therapy as a second-line treatment for rrLBCL.^1,3