Originally Posted by
Velo Vol
Some drugs got repurposed from other uses and happen to work. But the ones I mention above were designed specifically for this, so someone should know what is going on.
Back in the 80s, I was part of a team that worked on an approach similar to Enbrel, but against HIV (receptor fused to antibody Fc fragment to increase serum half-life). When we moved forward into clinical trials, many AIDS experts told us, with absolute certainty, and great specificity, exactly why it wouldn't work .
It turned out that it actually didn't work. But NOT ONE of the experts was even close to being right about why. The human body, and disease is WAY, WAY more complex than any system we can devise to test drugs. That's why we do clinical trials.
Indeed, TNF was originally expected to be a drug against cancer, because
In Vitro it killed tumor cells while leaving normal cells intact. It wasn't till they did toxicology in mice that they discovered the systemic effects it has. That discovery is what led to the idea of blocking it as a treatment for autoimmune and inflammatory disease.