Advances in anti-angiogenic agents for ovarian cancer treatment: The role of trebananib (AMG 386)

• Target terapies represents the new viewfinder of scientific investigation in ovarian cancer.
• Many drugs targeting different signaling pathways of angiogenesis have been developed and investigated.
• AMG 386, a new peptibody that neutralizes the interaction between angiopoietins Ang1/2 and their Tie2 receptors, represents a promising alternative.

Ovarian cancer is a multifaceted and genomically complex disease and has emerged as leading cause of death among gynecological malignancies. Gold-standard treatment consisted of cytoreductive surgery and paclitaxel–carboplatin chemotherapy. Recently, promising results of randomized trials have definitively confirmed the importance of angiogenesis in oncogenesis and ovarian cancer behavior, by showing a significant prolongation of progression-free survival with the addiction of an angiogenesis inhibitor to standard treatment in the first and second line setting. Research over the years has sequentially provided a rapidly broadening signaling landscape and many drugs targeting different signaling pathways of angiogenesis have been developed and investigated. Recently accumulating scientific evidence has started to shed light on the efficacy of AMG 386, a new peptibody reported to neutralize the interaction between angiopoietins (Ang1/2) and their Tie2 receptors, thus representing a promising alternative, both in terms of efficacy and toxicity profile and is considerably under investigation. The aim of this review is to summarize the recent researches and clinical progresses of AMG 386 as a novel target agent in ovarian cancer.