Dekavil at the ACR 2012 in Washington

Dekavil - fibronectin-A-chain connected to IL-10 or as it is said in the abstract below: “F8-IL10 is a fusion protein in which the cytokine is fused with the antibody F8 specific to the alternatively-spliced EDA domain of fibronectin, a marker of angiogenesis.” Link to my blog post on the drug at the EULAR 2012: http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2012/07/dekavil-at-eular-2012.html  

The poster says it’s dekavil, but the name isn’t mentioned in the abstract! M. Galeazzi and colleagues presented: "A Phase Ib Clinical Trial with F8-IL10, an Anti-Inflammatory Immunocytokine for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Used in Combination with Methotrexate (MTX)" (AbstractNo.1291). In this ongoing dose finding study, results are only clear for the low dosages (6 mg and 15 mg/kg body weight). On the poster achievements of ACR50 in 2 patients and ACR70 in 1 patient are shown. Maybe the drug is ao powerful, but maybe it’s simply an effect due to an unblinded study design. Conclusion: “These results also warrant future developments of the product in randomized clinical trials, which are currently in planning.”

Maybe we have to wait for a couple of years to evaluate dekavil. If the results are as good as shown in the abstract, then it could develop into a block buster. Philogen S.p.A. hasn’t rushed yet to large scale international multicenter studies and I interpret this as a hint, that the potential of this drug isn’t as high as the study of M. Galeazzi wants us to believe.