Immunogenicity of pembrolizumab in patients with advanced tumors.

Background: Pembrolizumab is a potent, humanized, monoclonal anti-programmed death 1 antibody that has demonstrated effective antitumor activity and acceptable safety in multiple tumor types. Therapeutic biologics can result in the development of antidrug antibodies (ADAs), which may alter drug clearance and neutralize target binding, potentially reducing drug efficacy; such immunogenicity may also result in infusion reactions, anaphylaxis, and immune complex disorders. Pembrolizumab immunogenicity and its impact on exposure, safety, and efficacy was assessed in this study.

Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of the BACE1 Inhibitor Verubecestat (MK-8931) in Healthy Japanese Adults: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study.

β-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) is required for the production of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides and is considered a potential treatment target for Alzheimer's disease (AD). To support Japan's participation in the global clinical development program, we characterized the safety, pharmacokinetics (PKs), and pharmacodynamics of the BACE1 inhibitor verubecestat (MK-8931) in 24 healthy Japanese adults in a two-part, single-center, randomized, placebo-controlled phase I trial (protocol MK-8931-007) and compared the results with historical data from non-Japanese subjects. Both single (20, 100, and 450 mg) and multiple (80 and 150 mg once daily for 14 days) doses of verubecestat were well tolerated.

Tildrakizumab, a novel anti-IL-23 monoclonal antibody, is unaffected by ethnic variability in Caucasian, Chinese, and Japanese subjects.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of ethnicity on the pharmacokinetics (PK) of tildrakizumab, a novel anti-IL-23 monoclonal antibody for the treatment of psoriasis.

Materials And Methods: This was an open-label, 2-part study in healthy adult subjects. In part 1, Japanese subjects and matched Caucasian and Chinese subjects (to Japanese) were assigned to 1 of 3 cohorts and administered tildrakizumab 50, 200, or 400 mg subcutaneously (SC).

Literature mining for the discovery of hidden connections between drugs, genes and diseases.

The scientific literature represents a rich source for retrieval of knowledge on associations between biomedical concepts such as genes, diseases and cellular processes. A commonly used method to establish relationships between biomedical concepts from literature is co-occurrence. Apart from its use in knowledge retrieval, the co-occurrence method is also well-suited to discover new, hidden relationships between biomedical concepts following a simple ABC-principle, in which A and C have no direct relationship, but are connected via shared B-intermediates.