Oral SMAD7 Antisense Drug for Crohn's Disease

Abstract

Crohn's disease is characterized by relapsing inflammation leading to ulcers in the ileum and colon. Crohn's disease also affects the perianal region in more than half of patients. The disease is caused by a defective recognition, tolerance, or elimination of microbiota in a person who is genetically susceptible. An inappropriately overrobust reaction of the adaptive immune system leads to chronic transmural inflammation and is the cause of progressive intestinal damage, which occurs in more than two thirds of patients. In their landmark paper in 1932, Burrill Crohn and colleagues described the consequences of the disease: "a disproportionate connective tissue reaction . . .