Ocrelizumab vs Rituximab from Bart's
The way monoclonal antibodies are named tells you what it's about, so rituximab means that it's not completely humanized, whereas ocrelizumab is more humanized. Not completely, but it's almost completely humanized. That's very important for immunogenicity. So you find that when you use rituximab in people with MS, a significant proportion, it's about between 25% and 30%, will make antibodies against the drug, which reduces its effectiveness. It's also responsible for infusion reactions. With ocrelizumab, the rate of anti-drug antibodies is less than 1%, about 0.5%. So that's the main benefit.
The other benefit is the ocrelizumab is being designed to work slightly differently. It doesn't recognize exactly the same area of the CD20 molecule, but also is more potent in antibody-dependent cytotoxicity, a way that the immune system kills the B cell or depletes the B cell based on this potency. So it is quite different to rituximab.
So actually, the experiment with rituximab and ocrelizumab, and other B cell-depleting agents, have shown us that B cells are probably the pivotal cell in driving the inflammatory activity in MS.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/mastery-of-medicine/neurology-mastery-in-ms/63226
The way monoclonal antibodies are named tells you what it's about, so rituximab means that it's not completely humanized, whereas ocrelizumab is more humanized. Not completely, but it's almost completely humanized. That's very important for immunogenicity. So you find that when you use rituximab in people with MS, a significant proportion, it's about between 25% and 30%, will make antibodies against the drug, which reduces its effectiveness. It's also responsible for infusion reactions. With ocrelizumab, the rate of anti-drug antibodies is less than 1%, about 0.5%. So that's the main benefit.
The other benefit is the ocrelizumab is being designed to work slightly differently. It doesn't recognize exactly the same area of the CD20 molecule, but also is more potent in antibody-dependent cytotoxicity, a way that the immune system kills the B cell or depletes the B cell based on this potency. So it is quite different to rituximab.
So actually, the experiment with rituximab and ocrelizumab, and other B cell-depleting agents, have shown us that B cells are probably the pivotal cell in driving the inflammatory activity in MS.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/mastery-of-medicine/neurology-mastery-in-ms/63226
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