Priming the Patient Developing a primer solution to keep immune system at bay, effectively thwarting inhibitors from impacting

g hemophilia treatment. Current Efforts: 1) High-Dose Clotting Factor Concentrates: Low-responding inhibitors can be effectively countered by administering higher amounts of factor concentrates. This would, however, become expensive over the long-run. 2) Bypassing Agents: Bypassing agents, instead of replacing the factor, bypass the blocked factor to help the body form a normal clot; this is done through boosting thrombin levels in the body. This is generally only used when bleeding is occurring. 3) Immune Tolerance Induction (ITI) Therapy: Stops the inhibitor by administering large amounts of clotting factor; this teaches the body to accept the clotting factor but is very costly and potentially unreliable (effective in 70-85% of patients). In looking at the three options, #2 is a far more sustainable alternative because both #1 and #3 are expensive. Baxter, unsurprisingly, has a product that covers #1. #3 is feasible if a low-dose ITI can be developed; for long-term treatments, this seems to be the best option. Attempting to remove antibodies or compromise the immune system isnt a permanent option, either, because administering the factor therapy will only stimulate the body to produce more antibodies within several days. In terms of the diagnostics behind predicting inhibitors, medical experts use Bethesda units a measure of blood coagulation inhibitor activity (the amount of inhibitor that will inactivate half of a coagulant). Patients could be isolated based on whether they have low-responding inhibitors (<5 BUs) or high-responding inhibitors (>5 BUs) for effective treatment, but this would need to be left up to researchers. The main problem with searching for start-ups or specific information on priming the patient is that a lot of this is still in an early-stage and more research still needs to be conducted.