Biologics are mostly used to treat life-threatening or debilitating physical conditions that frequently posed therapeutic dilemmas in the past.
The Basics
Conditions treated
Over the past 30 years, biopharmaceuticals have helped to treat the following conditions:
- Anaemia resulting from kidney (or other) disease with the help of erythropoietin alfa
- Diabetes with the help of insulin
- Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (low white blood cell counts) with the help of granulocyte-colony stimulating factors such as filgrastim, pegfilgrastim and lipegfilgrastim
- Multiple sclerosis with the help of immunomodulators such as beta-interferon
- Autoimmune disorders with the help of monoclonal antibodies such infliximab
- Haemophilia with the help of blood coagulation factors, e.g., factor VIII and IX
- Metabolic disorders such as Gaucher’s disease with the use of recombinant enzymes
- Various infections such as those caused by human papillomavirus infections with the use of vaccines.1,3
While not all cancers respond to treatment with monoclonal antibodies, on a global scale monoclonal antibodies are used to treat a number of cancers, including:
- Brain cancer
- Breast cancer
- Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia
- Colorectal cancer
- Head and neck cancers
- Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- Lung cancer
- Melanoma
- Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- Prostate cancer
- Stomach cancer7