Deucravacitinib shows efficacy in psoriatic arthritis, could be used ‘in the future’
Sotyktu (Deucravacitinib) met its primary endpoint of more than 20% improvement in ACR20 response among patients with psoriatic arthritis in the POETYK PsA-1 study, according to data presented at EULAR 2024 Congress. “Deucravacitinib is an oral, selective TYK2 inhibitor which inhibits the downstream cytokines that are important in PsA pathophysiology,” Désirée van der Heijde, MD, PhD, of Leiden University Medical Center, in the Netherlands, told attendees.
Following up on promising results in psoriasis, the current multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial was the first to study deucravacitinib (Sotyktu, Bristol Myers Squibb) in patients with active psoriatic arthritis, van der Heijde added.
Eligible participants had a PsA diagnosis for 3 or more months, met CASPAR criteria, had active or documented psoriasis and arthritis, elevated C-reactive protein and were naïve to biologic medications. ACR20 response at week 16 served as the primary outcome measure. The final analysis included 336 patients who received deucravacitinib 6 mg daily, and 334 patients in the placebo arm.
According to the researchers, results at week 16 showed that a significantly greater proportion of patients in the deucravacitinib group achieved ACR20 response than in the placebo group — 54.2% vs. 34.1% (P < .0001). “The primary endpoint was met with a 20% difference in ACR20 response,” van der Heijde said.
A significantly greater proportion of patients in the deucravacitinib group also demonstrated ACR50 (P = .0002) and ACR70 (P = .0039) response at 16 weeks.Regarding secondary endpoints, deucravacitinib was associated with statistically significant improvements over placebo as assessed by HAQ-DI, PASI 75, SF-36 PCS and MDA.“They all showed significant difference between active treatment and placebo,” van der Heijde said.
Moreover, deucravacitinib yielded nominally significant improvements over placebo in terms of FACIT-Fatigue, dactylitis resolution and DAS28-CRP, according to the results. The researchers reported no signals of major adverse cardiovascular events, venous or arterial thromboembolic events, malignancies or opportunistic infections associated with the study drug.
“Deucravacitinib can be an oral TYK2 inhibitor, which could be used for patients in the future,” van der Heijde said. “In many of the psoriatic arthritis domains, there was good inhibition by deucravacitinib.”
