Novartis reports positive psoriatic arthritis data for secukinumab

Novartis has announced results from a pivotal phase III trial showing the clinical benefits secukinumab can offer for psoriatic arthritis patients.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the data from the FUTURE 1 study indicated that secukinumab offered rapid and significant efficacy in active psoriatic arthritis patients, including improvement of skin and joint disease, and reduction in progression of joint structural damage.

Secukinumab is the first interleukin-17A inhibitor to demonstrate efficacy in a phase III study in patients with this debilitating long-term condition.

The current standard of care for psoriatic arthritis is anti-TNF medicines, but many patients do not respond to or cannot tolerate these therapies, with approximately 45 percent of people saying they are dissatisfied with current treatments.

Vasant Narasimhan, global head of development at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said: "Secukinumab is the first IL-17A inhibitor with detailed positive results for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis, further validating the importance of the role IL-17A plays in spondyloarthritis."

The drug became the first treatment in its category to be approved in Europe as a first-line systemic treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adult patients this year.