Protein therapeutics in healthcare: current and future trends Premium

Discover the world of therapeutic proteins, their applications, advantages, challenges, and future trends in healthcare and drug discovery.

Therapeutic proteins are increasingly becoming an indispensable part of healthcare, with their applications found in treating both infectious diseases, and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

What are they and how do they work?

Proteins are the largest class of biomolecules that drive cellular activities essential for life. Any aberration in their synthesis, processing or function, can lead to a state of disease. Therapeutic proteins are biological molecules that are largely derived from human proteins, whose pharmacological activity can span one of several mechanisms. These include the ability to inhibit or interfere with abnormal protein function, replace a deficient or dysfunctional protein, enhance existing cellular activity, introduce a novel function, or serve as a delivery vehicle for drugs.

This class of drug molecules commands certain clear advantage over small molecules (drugs of which make up around 90% of all pharmaceutical drugs at present) in several areas. Proteins have evolved to perform specific and very complex functions, and consequently, they are prone to cause fewer side effects. They are often highly potent and can circulate in the blood for a longer period, thus requiring shorter dosing frequencies.

More than a century of research and development has shaped the field of protein therapeutics, bringing it to its current state. The first documented instance of a protein drug was serum therapy for diphtheria in the 1890s that saved thousands of lives and earned Emil Adolf von Behring the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1901 for his contribution to this groundbreaking effort.

The extraction of insulin from animal sources to treat diabetes in the early part of the 20th century was another key milestone. Six decades later, in 1982, the first biosynthetic insulin produced by recombinant DNA technology was granted approval by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and heralded a new era in protein therapeutics.

The discovery of monoclonal antibodies and the technology for their large-scale production ushered in a paradigm shift in drug discovery. This enabled far-reaching applications in diagnostics, biological research, targeted treatment of various ailments like cancer, immunologic diseases and infectious diseases. Rational engineering of proteins, to enhance their stability, specificity and potency along with techniques that allowed the reduction of immunogenic responses to the engineered proteins, expanded the therapeutic scope of this class of drug molecules.