Alexa Kimball, MD, MPH: Latest Trial Data on Secukinumab for Hidradenitis Suppurativa

In her recent interview with HCPLive, Alexa Kimball, MD, MPH, spoke on the latest 52-week long term data found in the SUNSHINE and SUNRISE trials on moderate-to-severe hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).

Kimball serves as a dermatologist, whose specialty is complex, immune mediated skin diseases. She is also a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School and a board member at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Kimball first described some of the recent findings her team had explored in the 2 trials regarding the use of secukinumab (Cosentyx) for HS patients.

“Of course, this is a milestone study for us,” she stated. “It's only the second phase three program ever launched in HS and it's actually the largest one ever to date. So our HS journey is not yet done. But we have made huge progress over the past decade in starting to unravel which therapies we can use.”

The treatment, secukinumab, is an antibody developed to inhibit interleukin-17A (IL-17A) directly. IL-17A is a cytokine which is known to affect plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis inflammation, and other disorders.

In the last trial phase following 16 weeks, the researchers had found that a larger proportion of participants with HS achieved HS Clinical Response after secukinumab treatment given every 2 compared to placebo.

“So we're learning a lot,” Kimball said. “There had been a fair amount of data suggesting IL-17 was going to be helpful in treating HS and so great to have definitive data that clearly demonstrates that. And the 52 week data is particularly important, because many studies really look at week 12 and 16. And in the world of HS, that's a very short time period.”

Response rates in this phase continued to show improvement beyond the primary endpoint analysis at 16 weeks to over 55% of patients achieving an HS Clinical Response measure after 52 weeks.

“There was a moment that occurred about 10 years ago, when a patient just coincidentally was referred to me with severe HS,” Kimball said. “And I had this aha moment in clinic where I said, ‘You know, all the things we studied in psoriasis, we need to study in HS.’ The questions are the same, the answers are going to be different. And so that really started my journey for now what has been years.”

Further treatment options were seen as important to pursue, given that there is only 1 approved treatment for HS patients with limited long-term efficacy.

For further information, watch the HCPLive interview segment above.