Anifrolumab in systemic lupus erythematosus: a profile of its use

<p> </p> <p><strong>Declarations</strong></p> <p><strong>Funding</strong> The preparation of this review was not supported by any external funding.</p> <p><strong>Authorship and Conflict of interest</strong>  Y. N. Lamb is a salaried employee of Adis International Ltd/Springer Nature and declares no relevant conflicts of interest. All authors contributed to the review and are responsible for the article content. </p> <p><strong>Ethics approval, Consent to participate and consent for publication, Availability of data and material, Code availability </strong>Not applicable.</p> <p>Additional information about this Adis Drug Review can be found _{<a href="http://www.springer.com/gp/adis/products-services/adis-journals-newsletters/adis-drug-reviews" target="_blank">here</a>}</p> <p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>Anifrolumab (Saphnelo™), an intravenously administered immunoglobulin G1 kappa monoclonal antibody targeting the type 1 interferon alpha receptor, is effective and generally well tolerated as an add-on to standard therapy in adults with moderate to severe systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Anifrolumab reduces overall disease activity in patients with moderate to severe SLE despite receiving stable standard-of-care treatment, based on the totality of evidence from randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2b and 3 clinical trials. Anifrolumab also has corticosteroid-sparing effects and reduces skin disease severity. Therapeutic benefits of anifrolumab appear to be sustained over longerterm</p> <p>treatment. With respect to tolerability, anifrolumab recipients are at increased risk of infections (including herpes zoster). Additional long-term data are being collected in an ongoing extension of the phase 3 trials.</p> <p>© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022</p>