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Moving from an asthma pipe dream to a pipeline

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 11, pages 737–738 (2012)Cite this article

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After decades of stubbornly slow progress in asthma drug development, recent results from a trial of GlaxoSmithKline's mepolizumab hint at a brighter future.

Drug discovery is usually a slow process, but for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)'s asthma drug mepolizumab it has been glacial. Now, over a decade since the therapeutic failed in its first Phase II trial, it looks as though GSK's perseverance with the anti-interleukin-5 (IL-5) monoclonal antibody (mAb) has finally paid off. Results published in the Lancet in August show that mepolizumab nearly halved the number of asthma attacks in patients with severe eosinophilic asthma. This long and convoluted journey from failure to redemption reveals much about how the understanding of asthma has evolved and how drug discoverers have had to adapt accordingly.

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  1. Dave Holmes
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Holmes, D. Moving from an asthma pipe dream to a pipeline. Nat Rev Drug Discov 11, 737–738 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd3858

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