Effects of bimagrumab, an activin receptor type II inhibitor, on pituitary neurohormonal axes

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Bimagrumab.

To evaluate the effect of bimagrumab on the pituitary-gonadal and pituitary-adrenal axes in humans.

Why It Was Studied

Bimagrumab is a human monoclonal antibody inhibitor of activin type II receptors (ActRII), with anabolic action on skeletal muscle mass by blocking binding of myostatin and other negative regulators of muscle growth.

Bimagrumab is under evaluation for muscle wasting and associated functional loss in hip fracture and sarcopenia, and in obesity.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Pituitary-gonadal and pituitary-adrenal functions were evaluated with basal hormone measurement and standard gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stimulation tests at baseline, Week 8 and at the end of study (EOS)-Week 20.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Bimagrumab study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Bimagrumab, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Bimagrumab, giving a reference point.

What Was Measured

Bimagrumab is under evaluation for muscle wasting and associated functional loss in hip fracture and sarcopenia, and in obesity.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Activin Receptors, Type II, Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Androgens, Antibodies, Blocking, Antibodies, Monoclonal, Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized and Chromatography, Liquid.

Author keywords: acne, activin receptor II inhibitor and bimagrumab.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Bimagrumab.

Results are reported in around 6 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2018 (Clinical endocrinology), a journal based in England.

More context: the Bimagrumab compound page, all human trials.