Shifting From Systemic to Precision-Targeted Complement Therapies: Opportunities and Hurdles

The landscape of complement therapeutics has significantly broadened in recent years; systemically acting stoichiometric inhibitors against complement proteins across almost the entire complement cascade are now available. However, despite their unquestionable clinical success, several limitations remain, including increased infection risks, loss of physiological functions, and clinically observed breakthrough events. In addition, many complement diseases require lifelong treatment, further amplifying the overall healthcare burden and motivating the development of alternative concepts for more precision-based therapies. Given that many complement-associated diseases primarily manifest in specific body compartments, directing complement intervention to an organ, tissue, or even a particular cell type represents an important goal. In this article, we briefly delineate the status of approved complement therapeutics and review preclinical progress in emerging concepts. We highlight several key properties that are essential for achieving targeted complement therapies: administration routes, tissue/cell penetration, specificity, and the mode of action. In addition to approaches aimed at dampening complement activation, we outline strategies designed to specifically activate complement locally, for example, in the context of cancer. Together, these insights underscore the growing potential of next-generation complement therapeutics to achieve more precise and effective clinical outcomes.