Alefacept

Excerpt

Psoriasis is a life-disabling disorder in which 8–10% of patients aged 18–54 years actively contemplate suicide because of their disease. Due to their toxicity and/or inconvenience, current FDA-approved treatments for moderate-to-severe psoriasis are generally used intermittently, so that patients experience cycles of remission-flare-remission-flare and so on. The challenge in drug development for moderate-to-severe psoriasis is therefore to provide safe and effective long-term management. Immunobiologics offer hope of achieving this goal because they lack targeted organ toxicity. Thus, the treatment paradigm for psoriasis may shift from one of intermittent treatment limited by toxicity (with resultant flares of disease), to one similar to that seen in diabetes mellitus or hypertension, in which disease is controlled continuously. …