Bimekizumab sustains positive results in new, long-term data for psoriatic arthritis

Key takeaways:

• Overall, six out of 10 patients taking bimekizumab achieved complete skin clearance by week 52.
• Also by week 52, 51.7% of patients achieved a 50% improvement in American College of Rheumatology response.

UCB announced new long-term data from BE COMPLETE’s 52-week open label extension evaluating the efficacy and safety of bimekizumab in adults with active psoriatic arthritis, according to a press release.

Announced at this year’s Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2023), the new long-term data is from the open label extension study, BE VITAL, that built upon results from the 16-week phase 3 trial, BE COMPLETE.

According to the press release, the results showed that patients taking bimekizumab sustained positive improvement in their psoriatic arthritis.

“The new long-term bimekizumab data presented at EULAR 2023 showed sustained clinical responses across multiple disease manifestations and patient populations up to one year,” Emmanuel Caeymaex, executive vice president of immunology and U.S. solutions at UCB, said in the release.

According to the study, 51.7% of patients with psoriatic arthritis continuously treated with bimekizumab 160 mg once every 4 weeks achieved an improvement of at least 50% in American College of Rheumatology response by week 52. Additionally, 40.6% of patients who switched from placebo to bimekizumab at week 16 achieved the same result.

By the end of the study, complete skin clearance was reached by 65.9% of those continuously taking bimekizumab and 60.2% of those that switched.

Further, 47.2% of patients continuously treated with the drug and 33.1% of those that switched had minimal disease activity at week 52.

Safety data showed that 62.6% of patients had one or more treatment-emergent adverse event, with 5.9% of patients reporting a serious event. Candida infections emerged as the most common adverse event with 6.4% of patients reporting mild or moderate symptoms.