Cytokines & engineered cytokines
Cytokine therapy gives immune-signalling proteins as drugs. High-dose interleukin-2 was the first immunotherapy to cure some melanomas, at great toxicity.
High-dose IL-2 and interferon-alpha are historic. Engineered IL-2 (bempegaldesleukin failed), IL-15 superagonists (nogapendekin alfa/Anktiva, approved 2024 with BCG in bladder cancer), IL-12 (tavokinogene, intratumoural), and tumour-targeted immunocytokines are the modern forms. IL-2 remains part of TIL therapy regimens.
How it works
Systemic or targeted delivery of T- and NK-cell growth factors.
- Potent immune expansion
- Systemic toxicity; preferential Treg expansion (IL-2)
High-dose interleukin-2 was the first immunotherapy to cure a small fraction of patients with metastatic melanoma and kidney cancer, at the cost of ICU-level toxicity; today it mainly supports TIL therapy.
Bempegaldesleukin was a re-engineered interleukin-2 meant to be a safer version of a famous old immunotherapy. It added nothing to nivolumab in three phase 3 trials.
Interferon alfa was the first biologic cancer drug (1986). It treated hairy cell leukaemia, CML, melanoma, kidney cancer and Kaposi sarcoma, and has been replaced almost everywhere by better-tolerated agents.
An immune-activating drug approved in Europe for osteosarcoma after a trial suggested it improved survival; the FDA never approved it, and it remains one of oncology's transatlantic disagreements.
Nogapendekin alfa inbakicept is an engineered version of the immune-boosting protein IL-15, given with BCG into the bladder, approved in 2024 for early bladder cancer that BCG alone no longer controls.
Ropeginterferon alfa-2b is a long-acting interferon for polycythaemia vera that, unlike hydroxyurea, can shrink the mutant clone over years.
Latest papers
topQuery for this technology: (TITLE:"engineered cytokine" OR ABSTRACT:"engineered cytokine" OR TITLE:"IL-2 variant" OR ABSTRACT:"IL-2 variant" OR TITLE:"IL-15 superagonist" OR ABSTRACT:"IL-15 superagonist") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Cytokines & engineered cytokines, not a curated reading list.