Methods to Manage Psoriasis Using Oral Therapies, with Andrea Murina, MD

Author(s):

Key Takeaways

TYK2 inhibitors, including deucravacitinib, represent a significant advancement in oral psoriasis therapies, offering higher efficacy and once-daily dosing convenience.
These inhibitors are highly selective, targeting TYK2 without affecting JAK1, 2, or 3, reducing potential side effects on hematologic and lipid parameters.
The evolution from traditional systemic treatments to newer agents like apremilast and deucravacitinib highlights the progress in psoriasis management.

In her Fall Clinical interview, Murina highlighted several key takeaways related to her talk titled ‘Managing Psoriasis with Oral Therapy: 2024 & Beyond.’

A presentation, titled ‘Managing Psoriasis with Oral Therapy: 2024 & Beyond,’ was conducted at the 44th Annual Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The talk was led by Andrea Murina, MD, associate professor of dermatology and program director at Tulane University School of Medicine.

In this conference interview with Murina, the HCPLive editorial team asked her about some of the major takeaways of her presentation regarding oral treatments for psoriasis management.

“Oral medicines are really important in the treatment of psoriasis,” Murina and colleagues wrote. “In fact, we have a lot of older systemic medicines that we've used for years for psoriasis, things like methotrexate, acitretin, and cyclosporine. It really wasn't until about 2014 we had a new agent called apremilast. So I was really excited to talk about the legacy of oral psoriasis therapies. But also more excitingly, we have on the horizon, beyond 2024, the TYK2-inhibitors. Those are tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitors.”

Murina noted that TYK2-inhibitors usually are administered once-per-day orally, allowing for convenience for patients. She highlighted the newest one, which is deucravacitinib, as well as a new TYK2 in development.

“What I like to think about deucravacitinib is that we're really affecting some of the drivers of psoriasis,” Murina said. “So when you look at the data, you can see that it has a higher efficacy than apremilast, which is great. It's once a day instead of twice a day, like apremilast…Newer agents that are coming out that block TYK2 seem to have a higher level of selectivity to the TYK2. And it's also important to note that there's differences in TYK2 versus the JAK family.”

Murina highlighted in her presentation that the TYK2 inhibitors are so specific that they do not block JAK1, 2 and 3. She pointed to data to indicate with hematologic parameters and lipid parameters that they are not hitting that JAK1, 2, or 3 target.

For additional information on these treatment options, view the full interview posted above. To find out more about conference presentations, view our latest coverage.

The quotes used in this interview description were edited for clarity.