Erfonrilimab

Immunotherapy is a broad-spectrum antitumor strategy that exerts therapeutic effects on various types of tumors. In recent decades, there has been rapid development in the area of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), that greatly improve the overall survival of cancer patients. In the clinic, monoclonal antibody targeted therapy is highly effective, but exhibits vast individual differences. Some patients have achieved significant results, however, in others treatment has been ineffective. The combined use of 2 immunotherapeutic agents with different immunological targets improves the therapeutic effect; yet this strategy can be accompanied by more side effects. Therefore, agents acting as "bispecific an- tibodies" have gradually entered clinical trials. These drugs are developed based on the original immunotherapeutic agents but can target 2 targets. While improving the curative effect, such drugs can avoid the adverse reactions caused by the combination of 2 drugs. Erfonrilimab (KN-046) is a bispecif- ic antibody that targets both programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and blocks the interaction between PD-L1 and programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), as well as between CTLA-4 and CD80/CD86, thus enhancing the lethality of lymphocytes to cancer cells. This article aims to review the progress of ICIs in cancer immunotherapy, analyze the phar- macological mechanism of erfonrilimab, and discuss the clin- ical experimental progress related to this drug.