Old and new therapeutics for Rheumatoid Arthritis: in vivo models and drug development.

Development of novel drugs for treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases is to a large extent dependent on the availability of good experimentalin vivomodels in order to perform preclinical tests of new drugs and for the identification of novel drug targets. Here, we review a number of existing rodent models for Rheumatoid Arthritis in the context of how these models have been utilized for developing established therapy in Rheumatoid Arthritis and, furthermore, the present use of animal models for studies of novel drug candidates. We have studied the literature in the field for the use ofin vivomodels during development of anti-rheumatic drugs; from Methotrexate to various antibody treatments, to novel drugs that are, or have recently been, in clinical trials. For novel drugs, we have explored websites for clinical trials. Although a single Rheumatoid Arthritisin vivomodel cannot mirror the complexity of disease development, there exist a number of good animal models for Rheumatoid Arthritis, each defining some parts in disease development, which are useful for studies of drug response. We find that many of the established drugs were not tested inin vivomodels before being used in the clinic, but rather animal models have been subsequently used to find mechanisms for efficacy. Finally, we report a number of novel drugs, tested in preclinicalin vivomodels, presently in clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]