Methods and pharmaceutical compositions for preventing and/or treating acute and chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases are provided herein. Tumor necrosis factor-a (TNFa) promotes an inflammatory response, which causes clinical problems associated with inflammation and autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, hidradenitis suppurativa, and refractory asthma. TNFa is also implicated in promoting pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy leading to loss of retinal microvascular cells. Methods herein contain the step of administering a prophylactic and/or therapeutic formulation of a pharmaceutical composition containing a recombinant soluble human TNF receptor or portions thereof which are TNFa inhibitors. These pharmaceutic compositions have been modified by conjugating natural amino acids such as proline and alanine, and/or serine (PA/S) via PASylation® to create a linear polypeptide that possesses fewer of the processing, preparation, formulation, cost, and other long-term issues of administering PEGylated drugs.
