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Home / Healthcare & Medicine / Biology & Biotechnology / Pharmacotherapy: Understanding Biotechnology Products / Erythropoietin and Grow Hormone

Erythropoietin and Grow Hormone

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14.2
Before I talk about Erythropoietin, let me go through the Erythropoiesis cycle. Now when you are… when you have blood… normal blood oxygen and all is well, but when your kidneys sense hypoxia or the lack of oxygen due to reduced RBC count, then your kidneys secrete a hormone called erythropoietin. And erythropoietin will stimulate the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells. So as to be able to carry more oxygen in the blood. Now the external erythropoietin acts here. And therefore, it goes through the cycle, and it takes about four to six weeks to become effective. And in fact, the whole erythropoiesis cycle lasts for about 120 days. So after the erythropoiesis cycle, let’s review the erythropoietin products.
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Erythropoietin alpha, half-life is eight hours. It is administered by IV infusion or SC two to three times a week. Darbepoietin, it’s a glycosylated erythropoietin, and it has a much longer half-life of 50 hours and therefore, it can be given by IV infusion or SC only once weekly. And typically the regimen is individualized to target a certain hematocrit or hemoglobin. As I mentioned earlier it takes four to six weeks to be defective. Now there are biosimilars on the market. Interestingly, the product is subject to abuse. If you are aware of a great bicycle racer in the United States by the name of Armstrong, he won consecutively seven years the championship of the French tournament, and it was discovered he abused erythropoietin.
165.5
And therefore he has much higher hematocrit than all other athlete. And because of that drug abuse, his championship was revoked. And gold medel was taken back by the tournament organization. However, unfortunately the money had been spent. These are the packages. Again, Epogen and Aransep. And all that I wanted you to be able to do, was to pay attention to the dosages strength. Okay, the next therapeutic category, the growth hormone. And let’s look at the growth hormone pathways.
213.6
Hypothalamus secrete GHRH that is groth hormone releasing hormone, or GHIH, the growth hormone inhibitor hormone, Okay the other one is growth hormone releasing hormone, only balance of those two, then you’re pituitary gland secrete growth hormone which stimulate the liver to synthesize the insulin-like growth factor-1, which then promote the growth of muscle bone and the fat cells. and that’s how growth hormone make you tall and fat or increased weight rather.
262.2
And these are the two hormone products: Humatrope, and Protropin.

Two categories of biologic products are covered in this session Erythropoietin (EPO) is a hormone produced primarily by the kidneys. It plays a key role in the production of red blood cells (RBCs), which transport oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration. It is thus important in human development.

First, the erythropoetic cycle is depicted. Two well know original erythropoietin products are presented: Erythropoietin alpha (Epogen, Procrit), half-life 8 hr, given IV or SC, 2-3 times weekly
Darbepoietin, pegylated erythropoietin to extend half-life to 50 hr, for administration once a week. Biosynthesis pathways of growth hormone is also sketched. Two original human growth hormone products are presented, Humatrope (somatotropin) and Protropin (somatrem). Both erythropoietin and growth hormone have popular biosimilars on the market.

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Pharmacotherapy: Understanding Biotechnology Products
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