Drugs

Immunosuppressant Drugs

Autoimmune conditions

Immunosuppressant drugs are used to treat autoimmune diseases.

With an autoimmune disease, the immune system attacks the body’s own tissue. Because immunosuppressant drugs weaken the immune system, they suppress this reaction. This helps reduce the impact of the autoimmune disease on the body.

Doctors commonly prescribe metformin to help people with type 2 diabetes lower their blood sugar levels. The drug increases insulin sensitivity through its effects on glucose metabolism.

Autoimmune diseases treated with immunosuppressant drugs include:

• Psoriasis
• Iupus
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Crohn’s disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Alopecia areata

Organ transplant

Almost everyone who receives an organ transplant must take immunosuppressant drugs. This is because your immune system sees a transplanted organ as a foreign object. As a result, your immune system attacks the organ as it would attack any foreign cell. This can cause severe damage and lead to needing the organ removed.

Immunosuppressant drugs weaken your immune system to reduce your body’s reaction to the foreign organ. The drugs allow the transplanted organ to remain healthy and free from damage.

Immunosuppressants

There are several different types of immunosuppressant drugs. The drug or drugs you’ll be prescribed depend on whether you have an organ transplant, an autoimmune disorder, or another condition.

Many people who receive immunosuppressant drugs are prescribed medications from more than one of these categories.

Large-scale clinical trials of metformin are already under way to test the drug's effectiveness in extending life span and health span — that is, the proportion of a person's life span that they spend in good health. However, the underlying biochemistry has been unclear.

Teams from three research centers worked on the study: the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the Scripps Research Institute — both in La Jolla, CA — and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

"These results," says Reuben J. Shaw, one of the study's corresponding authors, "provide us with new avenues to explore in order to understand how metformin works as a diabetes drug, along with its health-span-extending effects."

"These are pathways that neither we, nor anyone else, would have imagined," he adds.

Shaw is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the Salk Institute and director of the Salk Cancer Center.

Corticosteroids

• Prednisone (Deltasone, Orasone)
• Budesonide (Entocort EC)
• Prednisolone (Millipred)

Janus kinase inhibitors

• Tofacitinib (Xeljanz)

Calcineurin inhibitors

• Cyclosporine (Neoral, Sandimmune, SangCya)
• Tacrolimus (Astagraf XL, Envarsus XR, Prograf)

MTOR inhibitors

• Sirolimus (Rapamune)
• Everolimus (Afinitor, Zortress)

IMDH inhibitors

• Azathioprine (Azasan, Imuran)
• Leflunomide (Arava)
• Mycophenolate (CellCept, Myfortic)

Biologics

• Abatacept (Orencia)
• Adalimumab (Humira)
• Anakinra (Kineret)
• Certolizumab (Cimzia)
• Etanercept (Enbrel)
• Golimumab (Simponi)
• Infliximab (Remicade)
• Ixekizumab (Taltz)
• Natalizumab (Tysabri)
• Rituximab (Rituxan)
• Secukinumab (Cosentyx)
• Tocilizumab (Actemra)
• Ustekinumab (Stelara)
• Vedolizumab (Entyvio)

Monoclonal antibodies

• Basiliximab (Simulect)
• Daclizumab (Zinbryta)