STING as an emerging therapeutic target for drug discovery: Perspectives from the global patent landscape

Background: The STimulator of INterferon Genes (STING) plays an essential role in the innate immune system by inducing the expression of type I interferons (IFNs) and inflammatory cytokines upon sensing cytosolic DNA. Although modulating STING has shown promise as a potential treatment for cancers and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases in substantial pre-clinical studies, current preliminary clinical results of STING agonists have demonstrated limited anti-tumor efficacy. Currently, there is ongoing R&D targeting STING and focusing on the delivery of next-generation therapeutics. Whereas no compre-hensive analysis on the STING patent landscape has been conducted to fill the gap between basic research progress and drug development and commercialization. Aim of review: This study summarized the current agents in the clinical stage and global patenting pro-files to help identify the current status, development trends, and emerging technologies of the nascent field of STING modulation.Key scientific concepts of review: Rapidly increasing R&D efforts and outcomes targeting STING were indi-cated by the recently increasing number and pharmacologic classes of drug candidates in clinic as well as in emergent technological patenting activities. Despite the overall fragmental ownership of patents, sev-eral pioneers that have advanced the clinical evaluation of novel STING agonists have established the basis of STING-relevant inventions through their influential patents in the field. These patents also facil-itated progress on novel STING modulators, relevant delivery systems, pharmaceutical compositions, and combination strategies with the potential for further enhancing therapeutic outcomes by targeting STING.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Cairo University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This article aims to summarize the current situation, development trends, and emerging technologies in the field of STING modulation. Through the analysis of clinical-stage drugs and global patent status, it is found that research and development on STING are increasing, but the current STING agonists have shown limited anti-tumor efficacy in clinical trials.