Upadacitinib Induction and Maintenance Therapy for Crohn’s Disease

N Engl J Med 2023; 388:1966–1980 doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2212728

Upadacitinib was associated with higher percentages of remission and endoscopic response regardless of previous failure of biologic therapy. This paper reports the Phase 3 efficacy and safety results of upadacitinib in patients with moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease.

Etrasimod demonstrated significant efficacy in achieving clinical remission, and was well tolerated compared to placebo in an induction and maintenance therapy.

Mirikizumab as induction and maintenance therapy for ulcerative colitis

N Engl J Med 2023;388(26):2444–2455 doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2207940

Mirikizumab was more effective than placebo in inducing and maintaining clinical remission in patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. D’Haens, et al. also noted that opportunistic infections and cancer developed in a small number of mirikizumab-treated patients.

April 2024

High levels of clinical responses were seen throughout the first 48 weeks with bimekizumab treatment. These were maintained to Week 96 in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque PsO.

Week 16 primary outcomes of improved PASI 90 response and sPGA score demonstrated Mirikizumab superiority to placebo and non-inferiority to secukinumab. This study presented results from the OASIS-2 trial on the safety and efficacy of mirikizumab compared with secukinumab and placebo in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

This pooled analysis of the Phase 3 PSO-1 and PSO-2 trials shows that deucravacitinib has greater efficacy in treating scalp PsO than placebo and apremilast. At week 16, response rates were greater with deucravacitinib versus placebo or apremilast for scalp-specific Physician Global Assessment 0/1 and Psoriasis Scalp Severity Index. Efficacy was maintained through 52 weeks in patients who received continuous deucravacitinib treatment.

December 2023

Psoriatic arthritis clusters, obtained by machine learning (ML) analysis of pooled data from the FUTURE, MEASURE, and MAXIMISE trials, indicate phenotypical heterogeneity of patients with PsA and axial manifestations and overlapping features across the spondyloarthritis spectrum. Here, Baraliakos, et al. sort to identify distinct clinical clusters, based on patient demographics and baseline clinical indicators, from the secukinumab clinical development programme.

Rates of MACE and VTE events in patients with RA or PsA treated are consistent across 15 mg and 30 mg doses of upadacitinib, and comparable with active comparators adalimumab and MTX. Several risk factors were also identified for MACE and VTE events in patients with RA.

Rates of malignancy were similar between upadacitinib, adalimumab, and MTX. They were also consistent across RA, PsA, AS and nr-axSpA. A dose-dependent increased rate of NMSC was observed with upadacitinib in RA. For RA and PsA, being older (≥65 years) and male was associated with
an increased risk of malignancy excluding NMSC.

November 2023

In this post hoc analysis by Deoodhar, et al., the authors found that tofacitinib demonstrated greater efficacy than placebo in bDMARD-naïve and TNFi-IR AS patients. They also found that safety event rates for tofacitinib therapy were numerically higher in the TNFi-IR subgroup than the bDMARD-naïve subgroup.