Progress and clinical potential of antibody-targeted therapy for arthritic damage

The advent of biologic drugs like infliximab, Etanercept, rituximab and tocilizumab has greatly improved the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, however, increased risk of infection and high cost still remain unmet needs. A new generation of targeted therapeutics is being developed to target payload drug specifically to arthritic tissue; to concentrate the drug in the disease area and limit the off target systemic exposure. This might also reduce total effective dose.

This article summarizes the properties and progress of targeted therapies that have been published on PubMed, and addresses their clinical potential. Expert commentary: Incredible progress with targeted therapies has already been made in the short time since the principle was first proven in animal models in 2007 when targeting payload drug to overexpressed oncofetal domain of fibronectin in inflamed arthritic joints.