Publications

With the recent emergence of new therapeutics for rheumatoid arthritis, new nomenclature for disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) may be needed to more accurately describe the new agents. Currently, DMARDs are divided into two broad groups: synthetic DMARDs (sDMARDs) and biological DMARDs (bDMARDs). The authors propose dividing synthetic DMARDs into conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs) which would encompass traditional DMARDs (e.g. methotrexate, leflunomide), and targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs), which would constitute those compounds designed to target a specific molecular structure (tofacitinib, baricitinib, etc.). The biological DMARDs would be divided into biological original (boDMARDs) and biosimilar (bsDMARDs). This proposed nomenclature has the potential to provide a clearer and easier way to group and distinguish the differing types of DMARDs.