Emicizumab prophylaxis administered subcutaneously once weekly or every 2 weeks led to a significantly lower bleeding rate than no prophylaxis among persons with hemophilia A without inhibitors; more than half the participants who received prophylaxis had no treated bleeding events. In an intraindividual comparison, emicizumab therapy led to a significantly lower bleeding rate than previous factor VIII prophylaxis. (Funded by F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Chugai Pharmaceutical; HAVEN 3 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02847637 .).

No abstract

Interstitial fibrosis plays a key role in the development and progression of heart failure. Here, we show that an enzyme that crosslinks collagen—Lysyl oxidase-like 2 (Loxl2)—is essential for interstitial fibrosis and mechanical dysfunction of pathologically stressed hearts. In mice, cardiac stress activates fibroblasts to express and secrete Loxl2 into the interstitium, triggering fibrosis, systolic and diastolic dysfunction of stressed hearts. Antibody-mediated inhibition or genetic disruption of Loxl2 greatly reduces stress-induced cardiac fibrosis and chamber dilatation, improving systolic and diastolic functions. Loxl2 stimulates cardiac fibroblasts through PI3K/AKT to produce TGF-β2, promoting fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transformation; Loxl2 also acts downstream of TGF-β2 to stimulate myofibroblast migration. In diseased human hearts, LOXL2 is upregulated in cardiac interstitium; its levels correlate with collagen crosslinking and cardiac dysfunction. LOXL2 is also elevated in the serum of heart failure (HF) patients, correlating with other HF biomarkers, suggesting a conserved LOXL2-mediated mechanism of human HF.

Emicizumab bridges activated factor IX (FIX) and FX to restore the tenase function mediated by activated FVIII (FVIIIa), which is deficient in people with haemophilia A (PwHA). Unlike FVIII, emicizumab does not require activation to function; thus, in coagulation assays, the behavior of emicizumab may differ from that of FVIII. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of emicizumab on coagulation assays, including potential interference behavior that may produce inaccurate or misleading results. A variety of clotting-based, amidolytic/chromogenic, latex particle-enhanced turbidometric, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent methods were investigated. As expected based on its pharmacologic mechanism of action, emicizumab exhibited strong activity on the activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), which resulted in interference with several aPTT-based assays, most importantly the one-stage FVIII activity assay; these assays are not recommended for PwHA receiving emicizumab therapy. Pharmacodynamic activity of emicizumab, as measured by FVIII chromogenic assays, was species-dependent due to the binding specificity of the drug antibody. Outside of FVIII assays, emicizumab did not interfere with assays based on immunologic or chromogenic principles, nor with clotting assays based on nonintrinsic pathway activators, thus offering alternative choices where aPTT-based assays might otherwise be used. The observed interferences are in line with the unique mechanism of action of emicizumab. Potential interferences should be taken into account in the selection of coagulation assays and interpretation of coagulation assay test results for PwHA receiving emicizumab therapy.

Expression of matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) is elevated in a variety of inflammatory and oncology indications, including ulcerative colitis and colorectal cancer. MMP9 is a downstream effector and an upstream mediator of pathways involved in growth and inflammation, and has long been viewed as a promising therapeutic target. However, previous efforts to target matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), including MMP9, have utilized broad-spectrum or semi-selective inhibitors. While some of these drugs showed signs of efficacy in patients, all MMP-targeted inhibitors have been hampered by dose-limiting toxicity or insufficient clinical benefit, likely due to their lack of specificity. Here, we show that selective inhibition of MMP9 did not induce musculoskeletal syndrome (a characteristic toxicity of pan-MMP inhibitors) in a rat model, but did reduce disease severity in a dextran sodium sulfate-induced mouse model of ulcerative colitis. We also found that MMP9 inhibition decreased tumor growth and metastases incidence in a surgical orthotopic xenograft model of colorectal carcinoma, and that inhibition of either tumor- or stroma-derived MMP9 was sufficient to reduce primary tumor growth. Collectively, these data suggest that selective MMP9 inhibition is a promising therapeutic strategy for treatment of inflammatory and oncology indications in which MMP9 is upregulated and is associated with disease pathology, such as ulcerative colitis and colorectal cancer. In addition, we report the development of a potent and highly selective allosteric MMP9 inhibitor, the humanized monoclonal antibody GS-5745, which can be used to evaluate the therapeutic potential of MMP9 inhibition in patients.