Insulin-like growth factor receptor type I as a target for cancer therapy

Abstract

After more than 20 years of extensive work, insulin-like growth factor receptor 1 (IGF-IR) is still an attractive target for drug development. Due to its close homology to insulin receptor, IGF-IR is of interest for antibody design while antibody great specificity allows to discriminate between the two receptors. Major efforts from a large number of pharmaceutical companies are invested to evaluate the efficacy of such molecules in human without so far an obvious success. Discovery of biomarkers associated with efficacy and patient selection is one of the main challenges that we will have to deal with in order to target the appropriate patient population that will most benefit anti-IGF-IR monoclonal antibody (Mab) and combined treatments. This review will provide an overview of the current knowledge on IGF-IR axis for development of novel therapeutics in Oncology.