Patent ID: 8394367

Claim:
A method for treating and/or inhibiting Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy (CIPN), comprising administering to a patient in need thereof an effective amount of an IL6R/IL6 chimeric agent which is a) a chimera comprising a soluble IL6R moiety and an IL6 moiety, said soluble IL6R moiety comprising the cytokine receptor domain (amino acids 113 to 323 of SEQ ID NO:1) of the extracellular fragment of IL6R (gp80), and said IL6 moiety being a mature human IL6 (amino acids 28 to 212 of SEQ ID NO:2) or a contiguous fragment thereof, said IL6 moiety having IL6R binding activity and IL6R-mediated gp130 binding activity, and said soluble IL6R moiety having gp130-dimerizing activity, b) a mutein comprising an amino acid sequence that is (i) at least 80% identical to a chimera of (a), (ii) at least 80% identical to a chimera of (a) but that differs from said chimera of (a) solely by (a′) one or more amino acid, substitutions, and/or (b′) one or more amino acid insertions or deletions, hut the total number of insertions and deletions is under 30 amino acids, c) a derivative of (a) or (b), wherein (a) or (b) is derivatized by one or more derivatizations selected from the group consisting of an aliphatic ester derivative of a carboxyl group, an amide derivative of a carboxyl group, an N-acyl derivative of a free amino group, an O-acyl derivative of a free hydroxyl group, and PEGylation of a functional group of an amino acid residue comprised by said agent, or d) a salt of (a), (b), or (C), wherein said CIPN is not induced by administration of streptozotocin, wherein said agent has gp130 binding and gp130-dimerizing activity, optionally together with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier, wherein at the time of administration of the chimeric agent, the patient is not suffering from diabetic neuropathy.