Preliminary results of early clinical trials with the fully human anti-TNFα monoclonal antibody D2E7

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Abstract
Biological agents such as antibodies and soluble TNF receptors that bind TNF α with high specificity neutralise its activity and have been developed for use as therapeutic agents. Several are currently being evaluated in patients with RA (table 1). Infliximab, cA2, is a chimeric monoclonal antibody (mAb) that consists of the variable region of a murine anti-TNF mAb coupled to the constant region of human IgG1κ.4 5 The resulting construct is approximately two thirds human. CDP571 is a humanised mAb consisting of the complementarity determining regions of a murine anti-TNF mAb grafted into a human immunoglobulin (IgG4κ).6 This mAb is approximately 95% human. Etanercept is a fusion protein consisting of two recombinant p75 TNF receptors attached to the Fc portion of a human IgG1.7 Although this construct consists of two independent elements, which themselves contain 100% human peptide sequences, they are arranged in an unnatural configuration.