Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD: Tapinarof Cream in Adolescents, Children with Atopic Dermatitis

Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD, spoke with HCPLive about the most important findings from the late-breaking data on tapinarof cream 1% once daily for atopic dermatitis (AD) in adolescents and children.

Chovatiya is known for his work as both an Assistant Professor of Dermatology and as the Director of the Center for Eczema and Itch at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.

His discussion covered the data he presented on outcomes from a 4-week maximal usage trial at the Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) 2023 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

“So the data that we reviewed here was a maximum use study looking at pediatric patients with large body surface areas of more than 25 or 35% BSA,” Chovatiya explained. “And the idea here, like every maximal use study is if you apply a lot of this medication, are you getting much appreciable systemic absorption? Is it correlating with some type of issues with tolerance? Is it correlating potentially with some type of treatment immersion adverse events?”

Chovatiya continued on his discussion of the new phase 2 data on tapinarof cream for AD.

“We have a lot of good safety data alongside efficacy data now with psoriasis, particularly with the approval that we have right now and sort of individuals that can use the same cream formulation once daily,” he said. “We have phase 2 results looking at atopic dermatitis, but this was really sort of the first formal maximal use study in atopic dermatitis, again, focusing on the pediatric population.”

He added that, by and large, the team observed very minimal systemic absorption and that they did not find much appreciable levels chemically.

“Overall, the medication was tolerated very well, even when people had to use quite a bit of it to cover the body surface area,” Chovatiya explained. “And as far as treatment-emergent adverse events go, very few things were observed including some of the particular events of interest based on the prior trials, with psoriasis and atopic dermatitis-like folliculitis, or contact dermatitis.”

Chovatiya further added that there was no particular association theme between a particular adverse event outcome and systemic concentration. Overall, he stated that even under maximum use conditions, it seems like safety is definitely conserved with treatment and in line with what researchers have seen with more conventional usage.

To learn more about Chovatiya’s late-breaking data presentation, view the full interview above.

The quotes contained here were edited for clarity.