Oncimmune Holdings Collaboration demonstrates the utility of autoantibodies in Methotrexate and Tocilizumab treatment selection

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Oncimmune Holdings plc (LON:ONC), the leading global immunodiagnostics group, has announced the publication by PLOS ONE of a study, supported by the Oncimmune’s ImmunoINSIGHTS team, which analysed autoantibodies in patients with newly diagnosed Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) who were treated with either Tocilizumab or Methotrexate monotherapy. This work significantly expanded the biomarkers commonly measured in RA patients to develop a detailed picture of the immune response to the disease and its treatment.

The aim of the study was to develop a set or panel of predictive biomarkers to identify an early response in RA patients to Methotrexate or Tocilizumab, Roche’s interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor inhibitor.

The study titled ‘Comprehensive exploratory autoantibody profiling in patients with early Rheumatoid Arthritis treated with Methotrexate or Tocilizumab’, is available online.¹

Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder primarily of joints, that causes long-term damage. The current diagnostic tests measure Rheumatoid Factor, which is typically elevated in 60-90% of patients with the autoimmune condition. Successful validation of a novel autoantibody panel that is predictive of treatment response would be a major step forward in the management of this debilitating disease.

ImmunoINSIGHTS, Oncimmune’s autoantibody profiling technology and service business, continues to work in partnership with therapy developers to generate, actionable, value-adding insights for their drug development programmes.

Dr Adam M Hill, CEO of Oncimmune Holdings said: “Rheumatoid Arthritis is a debilitating, chronic disease where there remains a substantial unmet need in ensuring patients receive the right disease modifying treatment as early as possible. This work, in collaboration with colleagues at Roche and UMC Utrecht, clearly demonstrates the power of our SeroTag^TM autoantibody discovery platform in identifying biomarkers able to predict response to a selection of treatments for Rheumatoid Arthritis. This predictive capability presents an opportunity to develop and validate novel autoantibody panels for patient stratification in trials and the clinic.”

¹https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241189