Hurdles and Leaps for Protein Therapeutics

Formulation and stability of cytokine therapeutics

Cytokines are messenger proteins that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of cells and control immune responses. Interferons, interleukins, and growth factors have applications in cancer, autoimmune, and viral disease treatment. The cytokines are susceptible to chemical and physical instability. This article reviews the structure and stability issues of clinically used cytokines, as well as formulation strategies for improved stability. Some general aspects for identifying most probable stability concerns, selecting excipients, and developing stable cytokine formulations are presented. The vast group of cytokines offers possibilities for new biopharmaceuticals. The formulation approaches of the current cytokine products could facilitate development of new biopharmaceuticals.

Recombinant immunotherapeutics: current state and perspectives regarding the feasibility and market

Recombinant immunotherapeutics are important biologics for the treatment and prevention of various diseases. Immunotherapy can be divided into two categories, passive and active. For passive immunotherapy, the successes of antibody and cytokine therapeutics represent a promising future and opportunities for improvements. Efforts, such as cell engineering, antibody engineering, human-like glycosylation in yeast, and Fab fragment development, have led the way to improve antibody efficacy while decreasing its high manufacturing costs. Both new cytokines and currently used cytokines have demonstrated therapeutic effects for different indications. As for active immunotherapy, recently approved HPV vaccines have encouraged the development of preventative vaccines for other infectious diseases. Immunogenic antigens of pathogenic bacteria can now be identified by genomic means (reverse vaccinology). Due to the recent outbreaks of pandemic H1N1 influenza virus, recombinant influenza vaccines using virus-like particles and other antigens have also been engineered in several different recombinant systems. However, limitations are found in existing immunotherapeutics for cancer treatment, and recent development of therapeutic cancer vaccines such as MAGE-A3 and NY-ESO-1 may provide alternative therapeutic strategy.

An overview of cytokines and cytokine antagonists as therapeutic agents

Cytokine-based therapies have the potential to provide novel treatments for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and many types of infectious disease. However, to date, the full clinical potential of cytokines as drugs has been limited by a number of factors. To discuss these limitations and explore ways to overcome them, the FDA partnered with the New York Academy of Sciences in March 2009 to host a two-day forum to discuss more effective ways to harness the clinical potential of cytokines and cytokine antagonists as therapeutic agents. The first day was focused primarily on the use of recombinant cytokines as therapeutic agents for treatment of human diseases. The second day focused largely on the use of cytokine antagonists as therapeutic agents for treatment of human diseases. This issue of the Annals includes more than a dozen papers that summarize much of the information that was presented during this very informative two-day conference.