Emicizumab
HemlibraUniProt P00451 · 3D model
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A lab-made antibody with two arms that grabs onto two different clotting factors at once, standing in for a missing clotting protein in people with hemophilia A.
How it works
Normally, a protein called factor VIII helps two other clotting factors team up to seal off bleeding. In hemophilia A, factor VIII is missing or doesn't work, so that teamwork doesn't happen. Emicizumab is engineered with two different binding arms, one grabs one clotting factor, the other grabs the second, physically pulling them together the way factor VIII normally would. It still works even in patients whose immune system has built resistance to replacement factor VIII.
What it’s used for
Used as ongoing preventive treatment to reduce how often bleeding episodes happen in people of any age who have hemophilia A, whether or not they've developed resistance to standard factor VIII replacement therapy.
- Mechanism
- Bispecific antibody mimicking Factor VIIIa
- Drug class
- Bispecific antibody
- Therapeutic area
- Hematology