The US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Division of Rheumatology has authorized the clinical development of XBiotech’s Investigational New Drug (IND) Natrunix, a candidate antibody therapy to treat rheumatological diseases. Rheumatological disease, a condition affecting the joints, is diagnosed in about one-third of adults between 45 and 64 years old and half of adults over the age of 65, totaling around 53 million people in the United States. As a drug, Natrunix works by selectively blocking inflammation that affects the joints and is not expected to have serious side effects or cause general immunosuppression, a promising development for the treatment of inflammatory joint diseases such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Having been approved to launch phase 1 of the study, Natrunix is expected to target a range of rheumatological diseases, conditions which have commonly been treated with steroids to suppress inflammation. XBiotech is a global biosciences company that uses innovative technology for the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutic antibodies.
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