Lupus drug will be ‘game changer’
The first targeted treatment for the debilitating auto-immune condition lupus could soon be available in Australia after a successful clinical trial.
The first targeted treatment for the debilitating auto-immune condition lupus could soon be available in Australia after a successful clinical trial.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the new drug after an international clinical trial, led by scientists at Monash University, found it blocked the receptor for an immune system protein that is responsible for chronic inflammation.
Lupus affects about 20,000 Australians, mostly women between the ages of 15 and 45. Symptoms are extreme fatigue, pain or swelling in the joints, a butterfly-shaped rash on the face, headaches and sensitivity to light. It can reduce life expectancy and carries a 10 per cent risk of death.
It’s thought that lupus patients’ bodies make too much of a soluble protein called interferon, resulting in inflammation.
Monash University professor Eric Morand led the trial of the drug known as anifrolumab.
“The target of the drug is a molecule called interferon, which is a soluble protein produced by the immune system for one cell to tell another cell to switch on,” Professor Morand said. “Its normal role is to prevent infections, but when you make too much, it causes inflammation. This drug blocks the receptor for interferon.”
Professor Morand hailed the drug as a “game changer” but said he feared it would not be approved for inclusion in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
“This new medicine is likely to be a game changer that we’ve been waiting for our whole lives in terms of powerful effects on the disease,” he said.
“Doctors have never seen a breakthrough drug for this disease and neither have the patients. This is what we have been waiting for.”
Currently, doctors prescribe patients medications such as steroids to control symptoms, but they commonly have side-effects.The Therapeutic Goods Administration is currently considering an application for approval of the drug in Australia; however, Professor Morand says he is worried about the PBS decision.
Only one drug that specifically targets lupus has ever been developed, but it is not approved in Australia or available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
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