Eight months after UCB announced that a little-watched drug candidate outperformed J&Js blockbuster Stelara, the Belgian pharma is out with full data that one investigator calls remarkable.

In the Phase III trial, 58.6% of patients who took UCBs IL-17 blocker bimekizumab were completely cleared of skin lesions after 16 weeks, compared to 20.9% of patients on Stelara. The UCB drug also outperformed Stelara at how many patients were clear after one year and at lesser benchmarks for plaque clearance, with more than 8 out of 10 patients showing 90% improvement, compared to roughly half on Stelara.

In a second study, first announced positive in November, bimekizumab was compared to placebo. In that one, 68% of patients on the treatment arm saw their skin completely clear and over 90% saw a 90% improvement. For placebo that number was 1.2%.

It really showed some quite impressive, remarkable I dont know how you want to say it, but extremely high level of responses, Kenneth Gordon, lead investigator on the placebo-controlled study, told Endpoints News.

Gordon singled out a couple distinct characteristics about the responses that stood out. Those included how sweepingly the drug alleviated symptoms, how quick it did so, and how long it lasted.

If you compare it to other clinical trials programs, both the speed and magnitude of the responses were around the highest weve seen, Gordon said.

Researchers often caution against comparing different clinical trials, such comparisons will be crucial for a drug like bimekizumab. The plaque psoriasis is a highly competitive market, suffuse with approved biologics from some of the worlds biggest drugmakers. Stelara is just one of several options patients can currently choose from.

The new data were released in abstracts for the annual American Academy of Dermatology meeting. On Friday afternoon, AbbVie also released abstracts from its open-label Phase III trial testing Skyrizi, an IL-23 inhibitor approved last year for psoriasis, against Novartis Cosentyx.

While trouncing Cosentyx, Skyrizi showed a virtually identical ability as UCBs drug to clear plaque psoriasis after one year: 66%. In addition, Eli Lillys IL-17 inhibitor beat J&J Tremfya last year in a head to head trial on psoriasis. UCB also beat AbbVies Humira last year, although results have yet to be announced.

From a medical perspective, though, Gordon suggested that asking which one is best might not be the best approach. Instead, prescribing decisions may come down to matching individual patients to the best drug.

Bimekizumab blocks multiple cytokines involved in plaque psoriasis, IL-17a and IL-17f. Because IL-17f exists in greater quantities in plaques, but IL-17a is more active, it had been an open question whether it was best to blockade both or if you could just target one and have the same effect.

Though cautioning no trial has been completed, Gordon said the latest data seem to resolve that debate. He argued the new insight, along with some of the other new molecules, represented a capstone on the progress the field has made since the chemotherapy drug methotrexate was first given to modest effect in the 1950s.

This might be culminating biologic molecule for psoriasis we have in the near future, he said. Now the question is how can we best apply each of our medications.

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UCB flashes the data behind its positive psoriasis readouts. Can it compete in a crowded field? - Endpoints News