Never Too Late: Late-Breaking Abstracts Create Excitement

EULAR 2022 (VIRTUAL)—The pace of scientific progress in research medicine is incredible and seems to only accelerate with time. Thus, the 2022 Congress of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) session on late-breaking abstracts fittingly captured the excitement and timeliness of a number of research projects that have just recently been completed and analyzed, thereby providing insights into a wide array of topics.

Deucravacitinib for SLE

Dr. Morand

Eric Morand, MD, PhD, professor and head of the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health and head of the Monash Health Rheumatology Unit, Melbourne, Australia, provided the first presentation on a study investigating the efficacy and safety of deucravacitinib in patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Deucravacitinib is an oral, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor.

In a 48-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 trial, 363 patients with SLE on standard background medications were randomized to receive deucravacitinib 3 mg twice per day (BID), 6 mg BID, 12 mg BID or placebo. Of note, oral corticosteroid tapering to 7.5 mg/day was required from weeks 8–20.

The primary end point in this study was the proportion of patients achieving an SLE Responder Index (4) (SRI[4]) response at week 32. The authors found a significantly greater proportion of patients in the group receiving 3 mg of deucravacitinib twice daily (58.2% vs. placebo 34.4%; P=0.0006) and the group receiving 6 mg of deucravacitinib twice daily group (49.5% vs. placebo 34.4%; P=0.021) achieved an SRI(4) response than patients receiving a placebo. The SRI(4) response was sustained across all deucravacitinib groups up to 48 weeks.¹

The rates of adverse events were similar in the deucravacitinib and placebo groups, and the most common adverse events with deucravacitinib were upper respiratory tract infection, nasopharyngitis, headache and urinary tract infections.

The authors concluded that deucravacitinib shows promise as a novel therapy for SLE and warrants a phase 3 trial.

Dr. McInnes

Bimekizumab for Psoriatic Arthritis

Next, Iain McInnes, MD, PhD, professor of experimental medicine, director of Research Institute (Immunology), Muirhead Chair of Medicine and director of Institute School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, University of Glasgow, Scotland, discussed a study on the efficacy and safety of bimekizumab in patients with psoriatic arthritis naive to biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs).

Bimekizumab is a monoclonal anti-IgG1 antibody that selectively inhibits interleukin (IL) 17F and IL-17A. Patients in this study were randomized to 160 mg of bimekizumab via subcutaneous injection every four weeks, 40 mg of adalimumab via subcutaneous injection every two weeks or placebo.