April W. Armstrong, MD, MPH: Deucravacitinib, Bimekizumab, and Upadacitinib for Psoriasis

In a recent interview with HCPLive, April W. Armstrong, MD, MPH, spoke about highlights from her 2022 Fall Clinical Dermatology presentation on breakthroughs in psoriasis treatment options.

Amrstrong works as both the associate dean of clinical research and a professor of dermatology at Keck School of Medicine at USC.

“We treat patients from diverse backgrounds,” she explained. “We have both clinics in the county system where we treat patients with pretty advanced pathology in terms of their inflammatory skin diseases, as well as clinics at Keck Medicine, where we treat a variety of patients also presenting with inflammatory skin diseases.”

Armstrong began with a description of the major highlights from her Fall Clinical presentation, including describing 3 treatments: deucravacitinib, bimekizumab, and upadacitinib.

“First of all, we have a new oral medication that was recently approved, and it's called deucravacitinib,” Armstrong said. “And what it is, is that it is a TYK2 inhibitor, so it inhibits a key enzyme that's involved in terms of the signaling pathway and psoriasis, and deucravacitinib is unique from other types of JAK inhibitors in that it doesn't bind to the active domain, but rather binds to the regulatory domain, which makes it this allosteric inhibitor.”

Armstrong went on to describe the phase 3 study data that she had presented on deucravacitinib that demonstrated superiority over placebo and over apremilast.

She continued to describe the major breakthroughs on which she presented, next describing information about upadacitinib treatment for psoriatic arthritis (PSA).

“Importantly, what was shown in the phase 3 trials for upadacitinib for PSA is that it not only improves signs and symptoms of PSA, but also importantly, it prevented the progression of radiographic changes,” she stated. “So those are the, for example, joint space narrowing or erosions that one was see as a result of PSA progressing clinically.”

Armstrong also went into several pieces of information on bimekizumab, a monoclonal IgG1 antibody that may receive approval in the US for psoriasis.

“So this level of efficacy is quite unparalleled,” she explained. “And this is something, I think, very exciting about this new medication. It also has shown to have a deep response in psoriatic arthritis as well, both clinically as well as radiographically.”

To learn more about Armstrong’s presentation from the Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference, view the full interview segment above.