Eat this, don’t eat that: CD47 companies’ first hurdle

The rush to drug CD47 shows no signs of abating, with five companies launching clinical programs for cancer this year and three moving forward on the back of encouraging Phase I data. The differentiator may be in which company develops the cleverest strategy to tell macrophages which cells to eat and which to leave alone.

Having briefly occupied the limelight as the next PD-1, CD47 is moving to the harsh light of day as companies work out how to capitalize on its broad potential in cancer, without falling foul of the safety issues that have already downgraded at least one candidate...