VIENNA, AUSTRIA: A large proportion of the world’s population suffers from severe joint pain or arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis), and now a brand-new drug may soon provide relief to patients.
According to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, this new therapy is based on a monoclonal antibody that has reached the third stage (phase three clinical trial). It is very likely that it will be generally available within a year.
Although antibody therapies have been used before, they block the signaling of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) molecule. This new monoclonal antibody drug ‘Olucizumab’ is slightly different. This is because 25% of arthritis patients do not respond to monoclonal antibody therapy and the patient has no remission.
In this context, there is olukizumab, which targets different immune molecules, most notably interleukin-6, instead of TNF. It also plays an important role in arthritis pain and inflammation.
The new drug was tested on about 1,648 patients who were suffering from arthritis and were also ineffective on well-known drugs. The patients were divided into four groups and given ‘Olucizumab’ and other drugs, this drug proved to be the most effective and better than all the drugs. These include patients who were not being cured by conventional medicine.
In this way, even those patients who could not be cured even with the best medicines will be able to get cured. The drug has been developed by the University Hospital Vienna and after this success, a generic drug approval has been applied for.
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