Three Humanized Antibodies In Clinical Development.(Brief Article)

2001 JUL 25 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

Protein Design Labs, Inc. (PDLI) announced testing of humanized monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of psoriasis.

The company reviewed the three humanized antibodies it is developing for psoriasis at a Satellite Symposium entitled, "The Immunologic Basis for the Treatment of Psoriasis: Novel Cellular-Targeted Therapy," held June 22, 2001, at the 2nd Joint Meeting of the International Psoriasis Symposium and European Congress on Psoriasis in San Francisco, California. Speakers at the Satellite Symposium included Daniel Levitt, MD, PhD, Protein Design Labs; Claudio Anasetti, MD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington; and James Krueger, MD, PhD, Rockefeller University, New York.

"We are conducting clinical trials with antibodies that target several different aspects of T-cell function, which is central to the immunologic basis of psoriasis," Levitt said. "We hope to identify novel acute and chronic therapies which will provide a comprehensive treatment regimen for psoriasis and other autoimmune diseases."

Protein Design Labs' most advanced antibody in psoriasis is daclizumab (Zenapax(R)), which is being developed as a maintenance therapy to prolong remission. Daclizumab is directed at the alpha chain of the human interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptor (CD25). Accrual has now been completed in an approximately 170-patient Phase II trial, in which patients with moderate to severe psoriasis were initially treated with cyclosporine. Patients who respond to the cyclosporine were then randomized to receive daclizumab in one of two dosing ...