The present invention relates to the field of medicine, and specifically to the field of monoclonal antibodies against human IL-17. More specifically, the invention relates to monoclonal antibodies/antagonists of IL-17A, which bind with high affinity to an IL-17 epitope, wherein the antibodies contain amino acid substitutions in hypervariable regions of heavy and light chains. The antibodies according to this invention can be chimeric, humanized or human antibodies or antigen-binding fragments thereof, and can be used as a medicinal agent for treating autoimmune and inflammatory disorders and disorders of cell proliferation and development. The invention also relates to methods for producing said antibodies.