Highlights of 2020

Please click the links below to go to the CSF review of each paper

2020 unfolded apace, dominated by COVID-19 - we have all had to adapt in our practice and in our knowledge base. Amid this there have continued to be a constant flow of publications and science in cytokine signaling, and as in previous years as we come the end of 2020, I will highlight some of the notable papers of the year. You can find the most notable papers, as selected by CSF Steering Committee Chair Professor Iain McInnes, with links to their respective detailed summaries below:

Keywords:

September 2020

Baricitinib, an oral selective JAK1 and JAK2 inhibitor,8 demonstrated significant clinical efficacy in phase 3 RA trials. Pooled data from these trials, including a long-term extension (LTE), inform the safety profile for baricitinib, mainly to evaluate the incidence of infection in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA), with a focus on serious infection, tuberculosis (TB), herpes zoster (HZ) and opportunistic infection (OI). The data collected were from eight double-blind randomised tr...

May 2020

In this randomised phase II trial with MTX treatment-refractory RA patients, greater efficacy was observed with fenebrutinib 150 mg once daily or 200 mg twice daily compared to placebo, while response rates were numerically similar to those observed with adalimumab. BTK inhibitors have demonstrated clinical efficacy in B cell malignancies and multiple sclerosis, although there is limited clinical evidence of its efficacy in RA. Fenebrutinib (FEN) an orally active and selective non-covalent inhib...

February 2020

In this study examining the effect of FIL on a panel of biomarkers, FIL down-modulated several key inflammatory mediators of signalling pathways in RA - independent of MTX background therapy. This confirmed the strong network effects of the JAK1 node in autoimmunity, matrix and cartilage degradation, angiogenesis, and leukocyte adhesion and recruitment. Biomarkers key to RA pathophysiology were measured at baseline, Wk4 and Wk12 in FIL 100 mg, FIL 200 mg or PBO treatment groups from two phase 2b...