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. In addition, most classes of anti-inflammatory drugs can have serious side effects.

Drugs directed at cytokines are "protein-based drugs" and hence are also called "biologicals". For this reason, they cannot be taken orally. They usually block the entire cytokine response of any given cell. Compounds directed at specific signal transduction pathways inside a cell have the potential to inhibit some responses downstream of cytokine receptors at the plasma membrane while leaving others unaffected. This could lead to a completely new and selective modulation of cytokine action. Compounds targeting intracellular protein kinases such as TAK1 which is utilized by various cytokines share the potential to modulate the effects of several cytokines simultaenously but still specifically.

To identify such new drug targets intense efforts are needed to explore disease-specific mechanisms of inflammation. Basic reserach in biochemistry, molecular biology and cell biology is still required to systematically characterize the molecular mechanisms of inflammatiory reactions as a prerequisite to define suitable extracellular and intracellular target structures for therapeutic intervention.