Long Liu,1,* Yang Xiao,2,* Yanyan Jia,3 Ziyi Shao,4 Jingfei Shi,5 Chao Cui1 

1Department of Hematology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Dezhou Hospital, Dezhou, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 2General Practice, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Dezhou Hospital, Dezhou, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Dezhou Hospital, Dezhou, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 4Medical School, Shandong Xiehe University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Clinical and Basic Medicine, Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Chao Cui, Email hbkjcuichao@126.com

Abstract: Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), as an autoimmune disease, has various limitations in traditional treatments, and there is a lack of safe and durable targeted therapeutic regimens for refractory patients. Traditional covalent Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors are difficult to apply in ITP treatment due to issues such as drug resistance and bleeding risks. As a reversible covalent BTK inhibitor, rilzabrutinib has dual advantages in its molecular design: in terms of evading C481 resistance, it targets the ATP-binding domain of BTK through a non-covalent bond-dominated mode, and maintains highly efficient inhibitory activity in the BTK C481S mutant cell model (with an in vitro IC50 of 1.2 nM), showing significant advantages over traditional covalent inhibitors (eg, ibrutinib, whose IC50 increases to 1 μM); in terms of platelet function protection, in vivo mouse experiments have confirmed that it can reduce venous thrombosis, block the BTK pathway to decrease autoantibody-mediated platelet destruction, and retain the functions of pathways such as G protein-coupled receptors, achieving a balance between abnormal immune suppression and platelet hemostatic function through “on-demand inhibition”. Preclinical studies have shown that its binding to human blood BTK is time- and concentration-dependent, and the inhibition of the BTK pathway in B cells and basophils is closely related to the degree of binding, with moderate kinase selectivity. Clinical studies have confirmed that the drug can take effect quickly, with 43% of patients achieving a platelet count ≥ 50× 109/L after 12 weeks of treatment, and the incidence of bleeding events is low. This article systematically analyzes the value of rilzabrutinib from molecular design to clinical translation, and elaborates on its mechanism of overcoming drug resistance and its synergistic regulatory effect on the B cell-macrophage-platelet pathological network. At present, its rapid onset, high safety, and effectiveness in refractory cases have been preliminarily verified, but long-term data from Phase III clinical trials are still needed to support its use as a first-line treatment. It provides a new therapeutic hope for patients with refractory ITP and also offers a paradigmatic reference for the development of kinase inhibitors for autoimmune diseases.

Keywords: rilzabrutinib, immune thrombocytopenia, BTK inhibitor, C481 resistance, dynamic targeted regulation