Monoclonal antibodies as therapeutic agents for inflammatory diseases

Abstract

Inflammation is a physiological process caused when an agent (chemical, biological or physical) transcends the primary defense barrier of an organism, playing a central role in the fight against those pathogens, setting a series of biological reactions to restore the integrity of such organism. Uncontrolled amplification of these events may lead to undesirable pathological manifestations such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular, neurological, and chronic inflammatory diseases. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) were first described in 1975, and since then they have proven to be relevant therapeutic agents in a myriad of diseases. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved more than 90 mAbs for the treatment of several diseases, from which approximately 46% were specifically approved for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, for instance rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and palmoplantar pustulosis. This chapter aims to provide an overview on the inflammation process and main biochemical mechanisms, a vision on the current state of the art of the mAbs-based biopharmaceuticals market, and describes the mAbs products already approved by regulatory agencies as powerful therapeutic agents for inflammatory diseases, while highlighting the advantages of these biopharmaceuticals and fomenting their widespread use as recurrent therapies.