Evaluation of Pre-existing Antibody Presence as a Risk Factor for Posttreatment Anti-drug Antibody Induction: Analysis of Human Clinical Study Data for Multiple Biotherapeutics

Biotherapeutic-reactive antibodies in treatment-naive subjects (i.e., pre-existing antibodies) have been commonly detected during clinical immunogenicity assessments; however information on preexisting antibody prevalence, physiological effects, and impact on posttreatment anti-drug antibody (ADA) induction remains limited. In this analysis, pre-existing antibody prevalence and impact on posttreatment ADA induction were determined using ADA data from 12 biotherapeutics analyzed in 32 clinical studies. Approximately half (58%) of the biotherapeutics were associated with some level of preexisting antibodies and 67% of those were associated with posttreatment ADA induction. Across all studies, 5.6% of study subjects demonstrated presence of pre-existing antibodies, among which, 17% of the individual subjects had posttreatment increases in their ADA titers while 16% had decreased titers and 67% had no change in titers. However, in studies conducted in the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) population, 14.8% of RA patients were associated with pre-existing antibodies and 30% of those had posttreatment titer increases. The results suggest that in most study subjects, pre-existing antibodies pose a low risk for posttreatment ADA induction. That said, the high risk of induction implicated for RA patients, primarily observed in treatments evaluating novel antibody-based constructs, indicates that further understanding of the contribution of product and disease-specific factors is needed. Cross-industry efforts to collect and analyze a larger data set would enhance understanding of the prevalence, nature, and physiological consequences of pre-existing antibodies, better inform the immunogenicity risk profiles of products associated with these antibodies and lead to better fit-for-purpose immunogenicity management and mitigation strategies.