Simponi

[butt-eze]

I just saw a commercial for a new RA drug called Simponi. Doesn't look like it will do anything for us.

Why do you think these cousin diseases have more options or get approved for different drugs before Crohn's.

I'm on Humira and happy. In fact, I don't want to start a drug that is new. I think Humira is unknown enough.

I guess my thoughts are all over the place. I'm glad to hear that there continue to be new drugs for auto-immune diseases.

How about a cure? I'm just saying.

 

[kenny]

I'm glad they are always looking to make improvements, but I am happy taking Imuran to do both for me. It's been around for something like 40 years now and very well understood. I hope through good diet and lifestyle changes that I will never have to escalate my treatment beyond it.

 

[Peaches]

Maybe there are more people diagnosed with RA than Crohn's so more possibility for a return on their pharmaceutical investment?

 

[imisspopcorn]

I would love to know the answer to this question.....Maybe writing a letter to the drug companies asking why would be a good idea.....hmmmm.

 

[saidinstouch]

They go for RA first more often than not because there are more people who suffer from it and the ways it can show benefit are greater than you find in crohns disease. Basically, it is significantly easier for them to get approval for RA than for most other diseases, so they choose that first. Once they have shown a drug is "safe" to their best approximation, then the trials necessary to use a drug in other diseases are shorter and somewhat less expensive. Essentially, the showing of safety is the most important step for a new drug followed closely by improving efficacy over currently available drugs. Hence the decision to go after a disease with multiple ways of seeing improvement.

Once the drug is approved doctors are free to do off-label prescribing. The only issue here is getting insurance approval, but doctors often can convince insurances of the necessity to try something off-label if the logic is sound (i.e. tnf-a drugs work in crohns and this one hasn't been show to be ineffective, and the patient isn't responding to other treatments thus far). The other possibility is that the drug was trialed for crohns disease and found to be ineffective, so they didn't seek approval for it (less likely and I'd have to lookup this drug, but my feeling is they will pursue crohns approval in the next 2-3 years since their trials for crohns are most likely underway).

Hope that sheds a little light on how companies decide what disease to target first for these autoimmune diseases.

 

[Sue-2009]

saidinstouch..if I may ask, what meds are you on? Sue

 

[saidinstouch]

I'm currently on cimzia (been on remicade, humira and tysabri) and entocort 9mg a day. Wasn't expecting the cimzia to work due to its similarity to remicade and humira. However, different antibodies bind proteins in different ways. Also, if I was having an issue with clearance from the body leading to both remicade and humira being taken out of my bloodstream faster than intended, cimzia would fix that. This is because the pegyl group (poly ethylene glycol) that is added to the protein makes it a significantly larger protein that is not easily cleared by the kidney, so it is possible to keep it circulating and effective in the body longer.

Other than those two drugs I take a multi-vitamin, cal/mag/vit-d supplement, and vsl#3.

 

[Sue-2009]

OMG!! Sue

 

[michael123]

hi,If we believe these to be causative organisms, then these patients are at risk, and we need to monitor gastrointestinal symptoms closely for signs of IBD after resolution of the initial infection," Sunanda V. Kane, MD, professor of medicine, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and panel moderator, told Medscape Gastroenterology.T.c