The St Petersburg University Clinic has a drug to cure the first patient in Russia with ankylosing spondylitis to stop the disease

A new drug, i.e. seniprutug, was developed by the biotechnological company "BIOCAD" together with a group of scientists from the Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University. It specifically affects and destroys cells of the immune system that cause the disease, without affecting the remaining parts of the immune system.

Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic disease associated with aggression of the immune system towards the tissues of its own body. The entire musculoskeletal system, primarily the spine and ligaments, comes under attack by immune cells. In rare cases, the intestines, eyes and skin are targeted. Most often, patients are diagnosed with the HLAB27 gene, which predisposes them to a more severe course of the disease and rapid loss of mobility in all parts of the spine and joints.

The first patient who received therapy at the St Petersburg University Clinic was a 40-year-old man. The man was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, also known as Bekhterev’s disease, in 2022. For a long time, the patient was bothered by pain in his knee, and traumatologists could not find a cause. Pain in the back and joints, severe arthritis of the knee joints with swelling and dysfunction, morning stiffness, fatigue and weakness are the symptoms that have accompanied the patient every day for the past few years. 

"Two years before the patient came to our clinic, he had come a long way to find a successful treatment," said Elizaveta Vasilenko, a rheumatologist at the Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies at St Petersburg University. The University doctors decided to use the innovative drug, i.e. seniprutug, in the fight against the disease. "The drug is administered intravenously over six to eight hours," explained Elizaveta Vasilenko. ‘After the first infusion, the patient feels well and is under the supervision of medical staff.’ Doctors at the Pirogov Clinic of High Medical Technologies at St Petersburg University expect that the patient will improve mobility of the musculoskeletal system and functionality, and reduce pain. These are the results shown by patients who took part in clinical trials of the drug.

You can get treatment as part of the compulsory medical insurance programme.

Before release into civilian circulation, the drug was studied within the framework of a full range of physicochemical and preclinical studies in vitro and in vivo, i.e. in artificial and natural conditions, and in clinical studies. Research of seniprutug showed that the drug is safe. The study observed a persistent and long-term decrease in the target population of lymphocytes, which play a key role in the occurrence and development of the disease. "For both the whole world and our country, the development of drugs that affect the cause, rather than the consequences, of the disease is incredibly important and valuable. After all, if you start treating patients at the earliest stages, you can prevent the development of irreversible changes," said rheumatologist Elizaveta Vasilenko. 

Now, the drug is available within the compulsory health insurance system (for the provision of high-tech medical care) and through regional schemes of medical benefits. If, at the initiative of BIOCAD, seniprutug is included in the list of vital and essential drugs and if there are medical indications, patients can receive the drug through all existing funding channels, including federal schemes of medical benefits.