Hello Sherlock, can you please explain what biologic drug is in this context? And what the implications are, as opposed to chemical drugs? (besides a difficult manufacturing)
Hi, Purple. RTX is an antibody. Further it's a
chimera, because it's half human and half from a rodent (Chinese Hamster).They actually start out with hamster cancer cells (which are immortal and therefore never stop producing).
As an antibody, it's engineered to latch onto any B-cell, somewhat like a flag which signals other parts of the immune system to kill that cell. Antibodies aren't quite living, but they are a protein made by living cells.
An example of a biologic drug that is
not an antibody is Enbrel. You might see commercials for that on tv all the time, it's mainly used so far for rheumatoid arthritis.
Does that answer your question, Purple?