Issue: June 2024
Fact checked byShenaz Bagha

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April 15, 2024
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Deucravacitinib improves ‘broad range’ of patient-reported psoriatic arthritis outcomes

Issue: June 2024
Fact checked byShenaz Bagha
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Key takeaways:

  • Deucravacitinib yielded better physical and social functioning vs. placebo.
  • The phase 2 study marks “one of the first times” generic domain scores have improved along with disease-specific PsA scores, the researchers said.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis who receive deucravacitinib report significant improvements in mental health, pain, fatigue and other outcomes vs. placebo, according to data published in Arthritis Care & Research.

“This is one of the first times we have seen strong data in both the generic SF-36 domain scores as well as the disease specific Psoriatic Arthritis Impact of Disease (PsAID),” Vibeke Strand, MD, of Stanford University, told Healio.

A quote from Vibeke Strand, MD, saying, "Deucravacitinib is an exciting, well tolerated product with very strong patient-reported outcomes data despite the limited size of the phase 2 trial."

Deucravacitinib (Sotyktu, Bristol Myers Squibb) is a TYK-2 inhibitor that targets immune-related pathways without blocking metabolic or hematopoietic pathways, like Janus kinase inhibitors do, Strand and colleagues wrote. To evaluate its effect on patient-reported outcomes in PsA, the researchers analyzed data from a previous phase 2 study that found the drug well-tolerated and more effective than placebo.

The current study included 203 patients with active PsA and a mean age of 49.8 years, randomly assigned in an even ratio to receive either deucravacitinib 6 mg, deucravacitinib 12 mg or placebo once daily. During 16 weeks of follow-up, the researchers tracked the percentage of patients achieving minimum clinically important differences in outcome measures, such as the 12-item PsAID, the Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index (HAQ-DI), the Short Form Health Survey physical component summary (SF-36 PCS) and others.

Compared with placebo, greater percentages of patients in both deucravacitinib groups achieved minimum clinically important differences in all patient-reported outcomes at week 16, according to the researchers.

HAQ-DI and SF-36 PCS scores demonstrated significant improvement from baseline in both deucravacitinib cohorts, with greater effects in the higher-dose group. The adjusted mean differences from baseline vs. placebo were –0.26 (95% CI, –0.42 to –0.1) for HAQ-DI in the 6 mg group, –0.28 (95% CI, –0.45 to –0.12) for HAQ-DI in the 12 mg group, 3.3 (95% CI, 0.9–5.7) for SF-36 PCS among the 6 mg group, and 3.5 (95% CI, 1.1–5.9) for SF-36 PCS in those who received 12 mg.

“Deucravacitinib is an exciting, well tolerated product with very strong patient-reported outcomes data despite the limited size of the phase 2 trial,” Strand said. “These are very promising data to be confirmed in phase 3 randomized controlled trials.”