Risankizumab safe, effective at 52 weeks for psoriatic arthritis

Risankizumab provides long-term benefits in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) who have not achieved adequate response to previous therapies, according to a study recently published in Rheumatology.

Andrew Östör, M.D., from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues evaluated the 52-week efficacy and safety of risankizumab in patients with active PsA who had previous inadequate response/intolerance to one or two biologic therapies or one or more conventional, synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs. Patients were randomly assigned to risankizumab or placebo at weeks 0, 4, and 16, with all patients receiving risankizumab every 12 weeks from weeks 28 to 208.

The researchers found that at week 24, 51.3 percent of risankizumab-treated patients (224 patients) achieved ≥20 percent improvement in American College of Rheumatology criteria (ACR20) versus 26.5 percent of placebo-treated patients (220 individuals). ACR20 was achieved at week 52 by 58.5 percent of patients on continuous risankizumab versus 55.7 percent of patients who switched from placebo to risankizumab at week 24. Other efficacy measures showed similar trends. Through week 52, rates of serious treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) and TEAEs leading to discontinuation remained stable, with no deaths reported.

“Notably, efficacy was maintained with administration of risankizumab every 12 weeks, while similar interleukin-23 inhibitors are administered every eight weeks,” the authors write.

Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including AbbVie, which manufactures risankizumab and funded the study.

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