Efgartigimod: First Approval

Declarations

Funding The preparation of this review was not supported by any external funding.

Authorship and Conflict of interest Young-A Heo is a salaried employee of Adis International Ltd/Springer Nature, and declares no relevant conflicts of interest. All authors contributed to the review and are responsible for the article content.

Ethics approval, Consent to participate, Consent to publish, Availability of data and material, Code availability not applicable

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Abstract

Efgartigimod (efgartigimod alfa-fcab, Vyvgart^™) is a first-in-class neonatal Fc receptor antagonist being developed by argenx for the treatment of autoimmune diseases including myasthenia gravis. In December 2021, intravenous efgartigimod received its first approval in the USA for the treatment of generalized myasthenia gravis in adults who are anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibody positive. Intravenous efgartigimod has also been evaluated for generalized myasthenia gravis in various other countries, with the agent subsequently approved in Japan in January 2022 for generalized myasthenia gravis patients

regardless of antibody status and in preregistration stage in the EU. Several clinical studies of intravenous and subcutaneous formulation of efgartigimod are also being investigated for other autoimmune diseases including bullous pemphigoid, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy, immune thrombocytopenia, autoimmune myositis and pemphigus. This article summarizes the milestones in the development of efgartigimod leading to this first approval for generalized myasthenia gravis.

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