Prometheus announces new method for monitoring antibody levels
during biologic drug therapy
14 May 2010
Prometheus Laboratories Inc. has announced a new method for
detecting antibody levels in individual patients treated with infliximab,
a biologic therapy that has been used to treat more than a million
patients across a number of autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid
arthritis, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
Human anti-chimeric antibody (HACA) levels have been associated
with decreased duration of response and increased side effects in
infliximab-treated patients. Current methods for detecting HACA are
limited by the presence of infliximab and therefore require a
minimum of 8 weeks following therapy for accurate measurement.
To overcome these limitations, Prometheus has developed a
proprietary highly sensitive method to measure HACA and infliximab
levels in patient serum in real time. The Company believes this
method can also be applied to detect other biologic drugs and their
antibodies.
"Early and accurate detection of antibody levels during the
course of biologic therapy may enhance our ability to assess reasons
for loss of response," said David Rubin, M.D., Associate Professor
of Medicine, Co-Director, University of Chicago Inflammatory Bowel
Disease Center. "In addition, we anticipate that therapeutic
monitoring of biologic therapy may become routine in our approach to
individualizing therapies to maximize effectiveness and minimize
adverse events."