ALK inhibitor

ALK inhibitors are anti-cancer drugs that act on tumours with variations of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) such as an EML4-ALK translocation.^[1] They fall under the category of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which work by inhibiting proteins involved in the abnormal growth of tumour cells. All the current approved ALK inhibitors function by binding to the ATP pocket of the abnormal ALK protein, blocking its access to energy and deactivating it. A majority of ALK-rearranged NSCLC harbour the EML4-ALK fusion,^[2] although as of 2020, over 92 fusion partners have been discovered in ALK+ NSCLC.^[3] For each fusion partner, there can be several fusion variants depending on the position the two genes were fused at, and this may have implications on the response of the tumour and prognosis of the patient.^[4]