Nature Study Validates PLA2G2D as New Checkpoint Beating PD-1 Resistance
South San Francisco, Calif. – September 15, 2026 -- Apeximmune Therapeutics said a peer-reviewed study published in Nature independently validates PLA2G2D as a novel immune checkpoint capable of overcoming resistance to anti-PD-1 cancer therapies, with the company's lead antibody AI-306 targeting an IND filing in the second quarter of 2027.
Two independent research teams identified the same target through different methods
Apeximmune's computational screen of more than 9,000 primary tumor samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas ranked PLA2G2D as its top novel checkpoint candidate, ahead of PD-1 and CTLA-4 in the same analysis. Working separately and without knowledge of Apeximmune's program, researchers at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam used spatial proteogenomic analysis of melanoma patient samples with divergent outcomes and arrived at PLA2G2D as a top hit in dendritic cell and macrophage populations linked to poorer prognosis.