April, 2019
As our name implies, the Lupus Research Alliance aims to forge partnerships and bring other players to the table to better understand and treat lupus — and our latest venture holds the promise of a new therapy.
We — and our affiliate, Lupus Therapeutics — are about to collaborate with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, to evaluate the investigational biologic TAK-079 in a nationwide study to be conducted in 20 research centers across the United States. Many of these centers are members of Lupus Therapeutics’ Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN).
TAK-079 is an antibody that is produced in the laboratory using human DNA sequences. In preclinical studies, TAK-079 attached to and inhibited CD38, a protein found on many immune cells that are involved in producing autoantibodies. Data from a study with healthy volunteers suggested that TAK-079 is generally well tolerated and showed a decrease in the number of immune cells that expressed CD38.
This new study aims to evaluate the safety of TAK-079 among patients with moderate to severe disease activity that has not responded well enough to standard lupus treatment.
