A drug that stops the body’s overactive immune system could be key to treating lupus. This would be only the second new drug for the autoimmune condition in 60 years.

A growing body of evidence suggests that lupus is linked to producing too many molecules called type 1 interferons, which are involved in regulating the body’s immune system. This prompted Morand and his colleagues to study the effects of anifrolumab, a drug that binds to type 1 interferon receptors and stops the molecule from overstimulating the immune system.

They randomly assigned 362 people with moderate to severe symptoms of lupus to receive a 300-milligram injection of either a placebo or anifrolumab every four weeks for almost a year.

The benchmark for success was if all of a participant’s organs that displayed signs of the disease at the beginning of the study improved and there were no flare-ups over the year. They found that 48 per cent of participants taking the drug achieved this, compared with 32 per cent taking the placebo.

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