tocilizumab   Click here for help

GtoPdb Ligand ID: 6881

Synonyms: Actemra® | R-1569 | RG-1569 | RHPM-1 | RoActemra®
Approved drug Immunopharmacology Ligand
tocilizumab is an approved drug (Japan (2005), EMA (2009), FDA (2010))
Compound class: Antibody
Comment: Tocilizumab is an anti-IL-6 receptor mAb, with immunosuppressive action [12] that is approved for chronic autoimmune indications.
Annotated peptide sequences for this antibody are available from its IMGT/mAb-DB record.

SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: In early March 2020, China's National Health Commission issued guidance that allows use of tocilizumab to treat patients with serious COVID-19-induced lung damage. Tocilizumab is predicted to mitigate against the uncontrolled immune response that is triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection [4,16] in some patients and which leads to potentially life-threatening damage to the lungs and other organs. Clinical trials are beginning to reveal outcomes (Oct 2020), but the level of benefit remains unclear [5-6,13-14] and requires further investigations. Differences between the studies (timing of treatment, severity of disease at initiation of treatment etc.) make it difficult to compare results and form a solid conclusion. In early January 2021, data was reported from a small cohort of severely ill, mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients in the REMAP-CAP trial (NCT02735707) who received tocilizumab. The information released (data not yet peer-reviewed) suggested that tocilizumab (compared to standard care) significantly reduced mortality and that patients treated with this mAb were able to leave intensive care 7-10 days earlier than those who didn't receive the drug. This effect appears to be in addition to the clinical benefit conferred by dexamathasone. As a result of this latest report, the UK Department of Health and Social Care was set to issue updated guidance (on 8th Jan; link to gov.uk press release) which will encourage NHS trusts across the UK to immediately begin using existing stocks of tocilizumab in their treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients in ICUs.

Biosimilars:
NameTrade nameCompanyClinical PhaseIndications
tocilizumab-bavi; BIIB800Tofidence BiogenApproved (2023)As per reference agent
QX003Sn/aQyuns Therapeutics1 [18]inflammatory/immune diseases
tocilizumab-aazg; MSB11456TyenneFresenius KabiApproved (2024)As per reference agent
LZM008n/a Livzon Mabpharm1 [3]inflammatory/immune diseases
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Ligand Activity Visualisation Charts

These are box plot that provide a unique visualisation, summarising all the activity data for a ligand taken from ChEMBL and GtoPdb across multiple targets and species. Click on a plot to see the median, interquartile range, low and high data points. A value of zero indicates that no data are available. A separate chart is created for each target, and where possible the algorithm tries to merge ChEMBL and GtoPdb targets by matching them on name and UniProt accession, for each available species. However, please note that inconsistency in naming of targets may lead to data for the same target being reported across multiple charts.

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View more information in the IUPHAR Pharmacology Education Project: tocilizumab

Classification Click here for help
Compound class Antibody
Approved drug? Yes (Japan (2005), EMA (2009), FDA (2010))
International Nonproprietary Names Click here for help
INN number INN
8394 tocilizumab
Synonyms Click here for help
Actemra® | R-1569 | RG-1569 | RHPM-1 | RoActemra®
Database Links Click here for help
Specialist databases
IMGT/mAb-DB 96
Reactome Drug Reactome logo R-ALL-9681301
Reactome Reaction Reactome logo R-HSA-9681294
Other databases
GtoPdb PubChem SID 178103463
Immunopaedia Search tocilizumab
PubChem SID 178103463
Search PubMed clinical trials tocilizumab
Search PubMed titles tocilizumab
Search PubMed titles/abstracts tocilizumab
Wikipedia Tocilizumab