Targeting Inflammation In Atherosclerosis After Darapladib: Does The IL-6 Pathway Hold The Answer?
This article was originally published in Pharmaceutical Approvals Monthly
Executive Summary
Targeting inflammation appears to be a promising complementary approach to lipid-lowering drugs in atherosclerosis, but the question of which pathway in a complex system to target remains open. The failure of GlaxoSmithKline’s darapladib in the STABILITY trial may have dealt a fatal blow to phospholipase A2 enzymes as targets, but the interleukin-6 pathway is gaining attention with the ongoing CANTOS study of Novartis’ canakinumab and the NHLBI’s CIRT study of low-dose methotrexate.