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

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