Background
- Inflammation and cytokines
- Acute and chronic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are of major relevance from a therapeutic but also economical perspective.
- Importance of anti cytokine therapies
- The history of relatively specific anti-inflammatory drugs comprises only a few major milestones:
- Drugs targeting IL-1 or TNF
- Today the importance of IL-1 and TNF for the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases is well established and undisputed
- Limitations of current anti cytokine therapies
- As for today there are no drugs that are specific for individual inflammatory conditions. Moreover, there is no drug that can cure inflammatory diseases.