According to Australian rheumatologist Ranjeny Thomas, MD, Professor of Rheumatology and Head of the Autoimmunity Programme at the University of Queensland Diamantina Institute, by using tolerance-inducing antigen-specific strategies and dendritic cells, the field of rheumatology is moving ever closer to developing more effective immunotherapies that may eventually achieve greater drug specificity with lower toxicity, and perhaps even the potential to develop agents that could control or even prevent rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Currently, 30% of patients with RA do not achieve sustained remission restoration of self-antigen immune tolerance with existing disease-modifying and biologic therapies, and the market for new therapies is predicted to grow to $12 billion annually by 2017.
Some of the recent key developments that Dr Thomas has reviewed include the emergence of anticitrullinated peptide antigens as a valuable biomarker in RA, targeting and injecting dendritic cells for antigen-specific tolerance, and phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials of oral tolerization of the dnaJp1 peptide. J Musculoskelet Med; February 27, 2013