Immunology and Inflammation Research and Development

Inflammation is a critical response to potential danger signals and damage in organs in our body. But with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and many others, our own immune system turns against our organs. These painful and debilitating conditions take an immense toll on people’s quality of life and many of these diseases are poorly managed by existing treatments that provide only symptomatic relief.

For decades, doctors relied on steroids to suppress immune response. Though an important option, steroids come with many potentially harmful side effects. Fortunately, science has continued to advance, and today we have the opportunity to transform the management of inflammatory diseases with new classes of therapies that target other key proteins and pathways in the body.

As science evolves beyond broad immunosuppression and into more selective agents, patients living with autoimmune and inflammatory disease have new hope. Pfizer scientists operate with a sense of urgency, focused on three areas with the greatest unmet need:

Innovation in I&I will remain focused on enabling patients to thrive in remission and to attain cures. It is believed that in the longer term, this will be achieved by evolving the treatment paradigm in inflammation beyond broad immunosuppression. In the clinic, more selective inhibition of pro-inflammatory adaptive pathways is being targeted to deliver transformational induction and maintenance of remission with lower safety risks. Emerging approaches are aimed at promoting restoration of the immune system and tissue health to deliver cures.

Precision medicine is embedded in all of our investigational programs in Inflammation and Immunology, where we seek to better understand the underlying disease biology and identify the group of patients who will respond best to certain treatments. Pfizer sees particular promise in combination therapies to reduce remission rates.