Olokizumab at the ACR 2012 in Washington

Olokizumab targets interleukin-6 (IL-6). So it would be much like tocilizumab (Actemra). I hadn’t seen any study at the EULAR 2012 meeting in Berlin. But I have seen some results on olokizumab at the ACR 2012.

R. Fleischmann and colleagues presented: "A Pilot Study Investigating the Tolerability and Pharmacodynamic Effect of Single Intravenous / Subcutaneous Doses of Olokizumab, an Anti-Interleukin-6 Monoclonal Antibody, in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (Abstract No. 1339). They concluded: "These results provided the rationale for a further study to investigate the clinical efficacy of olokizumab in RA."

The study only looked at CRP levels and not at any change in DAS etc. CRP dropped rapidly and the suppression lasted in most dose groups; only the 0.1 mg/kg iv group showed some recovery after 28 days. Uwe Fuhr, one of the authors, of the University of Cologne (Köln, Germany) isn’t known to me (most rheumatologists in Germany know each other); so I looked him up, he is working the field of clinical pharmacology. Back to olokizumab. Too young, too fresh! Let’s wait for more results, and please let’s have some DAS28 and ACR responses. Until then we’ll keep olokizumab on the screen.

You'll find some more here: http://rheumatologe.blogspot.de/2013/09/olokizumab-any-new-developments.html