Ireland
--:--IST
Latest
Astellas Expands Its 330 Million Euro Tralee Biopharma Facility with a Second Aseptic Filling Line to Double Drug-Product Capacity Xeolas Pharmaceuticals Opens 158,000 Sq Ft State-of-the-Art Baldoyle Facility to Scale Specialty Medicine Manufacturing Priya Life Science Partners with Fleming for the 9th Annual Corporate Compliance & Transparency in Life Sciences Summit in Zurich Ireland Has the Capital and the Lessons: Digital Project Management Is How They Become Delivery Dunbar Pharma Brings First Plant-Derived Dronabinol API to UK Market Through IPS Pharma Leveraging Priya Life Science as a Data Tracker: The Ultimate Use Case & Career Guide Astellas Expands Its 330 Million Euro Tralee Biopharma Facility with a Second Aseptic Filling Line to Double Drug-Product Capacity Xeolas Pharmaceuticals Opens 158,000 Sq Ft State-of-the-Art Baldoyle Facility to Scale Specialty Medicine Manufacturing Priya Life Science Partners with Fleming for the 9th Annual Corporate Compliance & Transparency in Life Sciences Summit in Zurich Ireland Has the Capital and the Lessons: Digital Project Management Is How They Become Delivery Dunbar Pharma Brings First Plant-Derived Dronabinol API to UK Market Through IPS Pharma Leveraging Priya Life Science as a Data Tracker: The Ultimate Use Case & Career Guide

← Drug directory

Checkpoint Inhibitors (PD-1 / PD-L1)

Also called immune checkpoint inhibitors, PD-1 blockers, PD-L1 blockers

Checkpoint inhibitors are immunotherapies that take the brakes off the immune system so it can attack cancer. Tumours often survive by switching on a "checkpoint" — the PD-1 receptor on T-cells, or its partner PD-L1 on the tumour surface — which tells the immune cell to stand down. These antibodies block that handshake, letting T-cells recognise and kill the cancer. PD-1 inhibitors bind the immune cell; PD-L1 inhibitors bind the tumour side of the same interaction.

Reviewed by Sreepriya Prasannan
MSc Digital Transformation of Life Sciences (Innopharma Education / Griffith College); MSc & BSc Botany HSE Spark Ignite 2026 — Top 14 finalist
Compiled from official FDA data · Last verified · Editorial standards
What this class is used for
Melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer, kidney, bladder, head-and-neck and many other solid tumours

5 Checkpoint Inhibitors in this directory

Keytruda
Pembrolizumab
An immunotherapy antibody used across many cancers, from melanoma to lung cancer.
Opdivo
Nivolumab
A checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy for melanoma, lung, kidney and other cancers.
Tecentriq
Atezolizumab
A PD-L1 immunotherapy used in lung, bladder and other cancers.
Imfinzi
Durvalumab
An intravenous immunotherapy used to treat lung, biliary tract, and bladder cancers.
Libtayo
Cemiplimab
An intravenous immunotherapy used to treat advanced skin and lung cancers.

Compare Checkpoint Inhibitors side by side

Keytruda VS Opdivo Keytruda VS Tecentriq Keytruda VS Imfinzi Opdivo VS Tecentriq Opdivo VS Imfinzi Tecentriq VS Imfinzi

Browse other drug classes

ARBs Anti-amyloid Antibodies Antibiotics Antibody-drug Conjugates Anticoagulants Anticonvulsants Antihistamines Antiplatelets Asthma & COPD Inhalers Atypical Antipsychotics BTK Inhibitors Beta Blockers CD20 Antibodies CDK4/6 Inhibitors CGRP Inhibitors COVID-19 Antivirals Cholinesterase Inhibitors Complement Inhibitors DPP-4 Inhibitors EGFR Inhibitors Enzyme Replacement Therapy GLP-1 Agonists Gene & Cell Therapies HIV Antiretrovirals Hepatitis C Antivirals IL-1 Inhibitors IL-17 Inhibitors IL-23 Inhibitors IL-5 Inhibitors IL-6 Inhibitors Insulins JAK Inhibitors PARP Inhibitors PCSK9 Inhibitors Proton Pump Inhibitors SGLT2 Inhibitors SSRIs & SNRIs Statins TNF Inhibitors TTR Silencers Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors

How this page is built

The facts on this page are pulled directly from official U.S. FDA datasets — they are not written from memory. Each field below names the dataset it came from, so you can check it yourself.

Plain-English summaries and drug-class explainers are written and reviewed by Sreepriya Prasannan (MSc Digital Transformation of Life Sciences (Innopharma Education / Griffith College); MSc & BSc Botany). Data is retrieved automatically from the sources above and cross-checked with AI-assisted verification (Anthropic's Claude) — brand and generic names are matched against the exact FDA product record so that a combination product or a different formulation cannot be mistaken for the drug on this page. An editor reviews the result before publication. We describe this in full in our editorial standards and corrections policy. The FDA data on this page was last retrieved on 12 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.

Please verify before you rely on this. This page is general information for life-science and pharmaceutical professionals. It is not medical advice, and it has not been reviewed by a clinician — our editorial team holds life-science qualifications, not clinical ones. It is not exhaustive and may not reflect the most recent label change. Always check the official prescribing information (US Prescribing Information or EU SmPC) and speak to your doctor or pharmacist before acting on anything here. Drugs in the same class are not automatically interchangeable, and approvals, brand names and indications differ between the US, the EU/Ireland (EMA/HPRA) and other regions. Spotted an error? Tell us — we correct promptly and log it.