VIDEO: Research on emerging therapies offers exciting opportunities in psoriatic arthritis

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Well, I come back to emerging therapies. It's always good to have new mechanisms of action being employed that can be efficacious for patients, and new constructs of known treatments. For example, there is a nanobody concept, using a very small molecular entity instead of the very large proteins that we're currently injecting or infusing. These are tiny little molecules that are bound to albumin and may have better tissue penetration in difficult to reach tissues, such as the entheseal insertion sites, the Achilles tendon, the plantar fascia, some of the places in the spine. So we're very excited about new mechanisms coming along. We're exploring the potential rationale for combining two biologic medications or a biologic with a targeted oral medication for greater potency of effect.

Of course, whenever we get into treating with combinations we have to be careful that we're not causing new safety issues such as increased rates of infection. But for some of our more difficult to treat patients, who have tried everything, we're now turning to such combinations. We're also doing more research on various aspects of psoriatic arthritis including those that have spine disease related to immunologic inflammation in the spine and sacroiliac joints. And we're learning more about these patients. We're learning what causes this spinal inflammation and we're learning more about what therapies are most effective in the spine including some that may have differential effects with other spinal diseases. So this is a very exciting new area.