HISTORY OF GLUCOCORTICOIDS (STEROIDS)
The dilemma of steroids:
separating desirable and undesirable effects.
Steroids have been essential medicines for many decades.
Steroids are among biology’s most potent and versatile substances. They regulate a wide variety of essential bodily functions from glucose metabolism, blood pressure, and bone turnover, to immune response, mood, and memory. They have potent anti-inflammatory properties.
In 1950, Edward Calvin Kendall, Tadeus Reichstein, and Philip Showalter Hench won the Nobel Prize for isolating cortisone and demonstrating how to leverage its functionality as a medicine. Steroid medicines, which now include cortisol analogues such as prednisone and prednisolone, have become a mainstay in the treatment of patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, transplanted organs, cancer, and numerous other conditions.
Unveiling the dark side of steroids.
When the very first patients were administered cortisone, it was so effective in treating their rheumatoid arthritis that they literally rose from their wheelchairs and jumped for joy. However, a short time later, debilitating side effects led many of these patients to swear off the medicine for good!
Ever since, patients on steroid medicines have struggled with the same trade-off of high efficacy for severe side effects, particularly when administered the medicines in high doses for long periods.
For over 70 years, scientists have labored to separate the life-changing efficacy of steroid medicines from their wide-ranging toxicities. In fact, Kendall himself dedicated the last decades of his life to this effort. But apart from the utilization of non-systemic delivery, there has been little success.
To this day, millions of patients must still choose between adequate control of debilitating autoimmune diseases and living with the severe side effects of their steroid medicine.
Solving the puzzle.
Believing reducing the side effects of steroids to be a lost cause, recent research has focused on alternate methods for treating autoimmune diseases. While useful, these treatments are generally extremely expensive and not as effective as steroids, often requiring co-administration of steroids to achieve maximum efficacy.
By exploiting underappreciated insights into the intracellular metabolism of steroids, Sparrow may finally solve this intractable puzzle. Combining an effective steroid medicine with a HSD-1 inhibitor, our novel therapy SPI-47 has the potential to spark a revolution in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.