Equivalent Gene Expression Profiles between Glatopa™ and Copaxone®

Multiomic study of skin, peripheral blood, and serum: is serum proteome a reflection of disease process at the end-organ level in systemic sclerosis?

BACKGROUND

Serum proteins can be readily assessed during routine clinical care. However, it is unclear to what extent serum proteins reflect the molecular dysregulations of peripheral blood cells (PBCs) or affected end-organs in systemic sclerosis (SSc). We conducted a multiomic comparative analysis of SSc serum profile, PBC, and skin gene expression in concurrently collected samples.

METHODS

Global gene expression profiling was carried out in skin and PBC samples obtained from 49 SSc patients enrolled in the GENISOS observational cohort and 25 unaffected controls. Levels of 911 proteins were determined by Olink Proximity Extension Assay in concurrently collected serum samples.

RESULTS

Both SSc PBC and skin transcriptomes showed a prominent type I interferon signature. The examination of SSc serum profile revealed an upregulation of proteins involved in pro-fibrotic homing and extravasation, as well as extracellular matrix components/modulators. Notably, several soluble receptor proteins such as EGFR, ERBB2, ERBB3, VEGFR2, TGFBR3, and PDGF-Rα were downregulated. Thirty-nine proteins correlated with severity of SSc skin disease. The differential expression of serum protein in SSc vs. control comparison significantly correlated with the differential expression of corresponding transcripts in skin but not in PBCs. Moreover, the differentially expressed serum proteins were significantly more connected to the Well-Associated-Proteins in the skin than PBC gene expression dataset. The assessment of the concordance of between-sample similarities revealed that the molecular profile of serum proteins and skin gene expression data were significantly concordant in patients with SSc but not in healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS

SSc serum protein profile shows an upregulation of profibrotic cytokines and a downregulation of soluble EGF and other key receptors. Our multilevel comparative analysis indicates that the serum protein profile in SSc correlates more closely with molecular dysregulations of skin than PBCs and might serve as a reflection of disease severity at the end-organ level.

Enhancing reproducibility of gene expression analysis with known protein functional relationships: The concept of well-associated protein

Identification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) is well recognized to be variable across independent replications of genome-wide transcriptional studies. These are often employed to characterize disease state early in the process of discovery and prioritize novel targets aimed at addressing unmet medical need. Increasing reproducibility of biological findings from these studies could potentially positively impact the success rate of new clinical interventions. This work demonstrates that statistically sound combination of gene expression data with prior knowledge about biology in the form of large protein interaction networks can yield quantitatively more reproducible observations from studies characterizing human disease. The novel concept of Well-Associated Proteins (WAPs) introduced herein-gene products significantly associated on protein interaction networks with the differences in transcript levels between control and disease-does not require choosing a differential expression threshold and can be computed efficiently enough to enable false discovery rate estimation via permutation. Reproducibility of WAPs is shown to be on average superior to that of DEGs under easily-quantifiable conditions suggesting that they can yield a significantly more robust description of disease. Enhanced reproducibility of WAPs versus DEGs is first demonstrated with four independent data sets focused on systemic sclerosis. This finding is then validated over thousands of pairs of data sets obtained by random partitions of large studies in several other diseases. Conditions that individual data sets must satisfy to yield robust WAP scores are examined. Reproducible identification of WAPs can potentially benefit drug target selection and precision medicine studies.

Demonstration of Biological and Immunological Equivalence of a Generic Glatiramer Acetate

BACKGROUND

In April 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first generic glatiramer acetate, Glatopa® (M356), as fully substitutable for Copaxone® 20 mg/mL for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). This approval was accomplished through an Abbreviated New Drug Application that demonstrated equivalence to Copaxone.

METHOD

This article will provide an overview of the methods used to establish the biological and immunological equivalence of the two glatiramer acetate products, including methods evaluating antigenpresenting cell (APC) biology, T-cell biology, and other immunomodulatory effects.

RESULTS

In vitro and in vivo experiments from multiple redundant orthogonal assays within four biological processes (aggregate biology, APC biology, T-cell biology, and B-cell biology) modulated by glatiramer acetate in MS established the biological and immunological equivalence of Glatopa and Copaxone and are described. The following were observed when comparing Glatopa and Copaxone in these experiments: equivalent delays in symptom onset and reductions in "disease" intensity in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis; equivalent dose-dependent increases in Glatopa- and Copaxone- induced monokine-induced interferon-gamma release from THP-1 cells; a shift to a T helper 2 phenotype resulting in the secretion of interleukin (IL)-4 and downregulation of IL-17 release; no differences in immunogenicity and the presence of equivalent "immunofingerprints" between both versions of glatiramer acetate; and no stimulation of histamine release with either glatiramer acetate in basophilic leukemia 2H3 cell lines.

CONCLUSION

In summary, this comprehensive approach across different biological and immunological pathways modulated by glatiramer acetate consistently supported the biological and immunological equivalence of Glatopa and Copaxone.

Development of Glatopa® (Glatiramer Acetate): The First FDA-Approved Generic Disease-Modifying Therapy for Relapsing Forms of Multiple Sclerosis

The multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment landscape in the United States has changed dramatically over the past decade. While many disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS, DMT costs continue to rise. The availability of generics and biosimilars in the MS-treatment landscape is unlikely to have a major impact on clinical benefit. However, their availability will provide alternative treatment options and potentially lower costs through competition, thus increasing the affordability of and access to these drugs. In April 2015, the first generic version of the complex drug glatiramer acetate (Glatopa® 20 mg/mL) injection was approved in the United States as a fully substitutable generic for all approved indications of the 20 mg/mL branded glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®) dosage form. Despite glatiramer acetate's complex nature-being a chemically synthesized (ie, nonbiologic) mixture of peptides-the approval occurred without conducting any clinical trials. Rather, extensive structural and functional characterization was performed to demonstrate therapeutic equivalence to the innovator drug. The approval of Glatopa signifies an important milestone in the US MS-treatment landscape, with the hope that the introduction of generic DMTs and eventually biosimilar DMTs will lead to future improvements in the affordability and access of these much-needed treatments for MS.

Development of Glatopa® (Glatiramer Acetate): The First FDA-Approved Generic Disease-Modifying Therapy for Relapsing Forms of Multiple Sclerosis

The multiple sclerosis (MS) treatment landscape in the United States has changed dramatically over the past decade. While many disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of relapsing forms of MS, DMT costs continue to rise. The availability of generics and biosimilars in the MS-treatment landscape is unlikely to have a major impact on clinical benefit. However, their availability will provide alternative treatment options and potentially lower costs through competition, thus increasing the affordability of and access to these drugs. In April 2015, the first generic version of the complex drug glatiramer acetate (Glatopa® 20 mg/mL) injection was approved in the United States as a fully substitutable generic for all approved indications of the 20 mg/mL branded glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®) dosage form. Despite glatiramer acetate's complex nature-being a chemically synthesized (ie, nonbiologic) mixture of peptides-the approval occurred without conducting any clinical trials. Rather, extensive structural and functional characterization was performed to demonstrate therapeutic equivalence to the innovator drug. The approval of Glatopa signifies an important milestone in the US MS-treatment landscape, with the hope that the introduction of generic DMTs and eventually biosimilar DMTs will lead to future improvements in the affordability and access of these much-needed treatments for MS.

Biomaterial strategies for generating therapeutic immune responses

Biomaterials employed to raise therapeutic immune responses have become a complex and active field. Historically, vaccines have been developed primarily to fight infectious diseases, but recent years have seen the development of immunologically active biomaterials towards an expanding list of non-infectious diseases and conditions including inflammation, autoimmunity, wounds, cancer, and others. This review structures its discussion of these approaches around a progression from single-target strategies to those that engage increasingly complex and multifactorial immune responses. First, the targeting of specific individual cytokines is discussed, both in terms of delivering the cytokines or blocking agents, and in terms of active immunotherapies that raise neutralizing immune responses against such single cytokine targets. Next, non-biological complex drugs such as randomized polyamino acid copolymers are discussed in terms of their ability to raise multiple different therapeutic immune responses, particularly in the context of autoimmunity. Last, biologically derived matrices and materials are discussed in terms of their ability to raise complex immune responses in the context of tissue repair. Collectively, these examples reflect the tremendous diversity of existing approaches and the breadth of opportunities that remain for generating therapeutic immune responses using biomaterials.