Evaluation of response to 13-valent conjugated pneumococcal vaccination in patients with rheumatoid arthritis receiving upadacitinib: results from a phase 2 open-label extension study

Winthrop K, Vargas JI, Drescher E, Garcia C, Friedman A, Hendrickson B, Li Y, Klaff J, Kivitz A.
RMD Open. 2022;8(1):e002110 doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2021-002110

Vaccine sub-study of the BALANCE-EXTEND upadacitinib trial finds that approximately two-thirds of patients receiving upadacitinib 15 mg once-daily achieve a satisfactory humoral response to pneumococcal 13-valent conjugate (PCV-13) vaccine, despite receiving concomitant methotrexate (MTX). It is well known that a weakened immune response, comorbidities and immunosuppressant drug therapy all contribute to an increased susceptibility to infections in patients with RA. Likewise, the morbidity and m...

Upadacitinib as Monotherapy in Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis and Inadequate Response to Methotrexate (SELECT-MONOTHERAPY): A Randomised, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Phase 3 Study

Smolen JS, Pangan AL, Emery P, Rigby W, Tanaka Y, Vargas JI, Zhang Y, Damjanov N, Friedman A, Othman AA, Camp HS, Cohen S.
Lancet. 2019 Jun 8;393(10188):2303-2311

UPA monotherapy showed statistically significant improvements in clinical and functional outcomes versus continuing MTX in MTX inadequate-responder patients with RA. Despite its proven effectiveness and safety, many patients are unable to tolerate MTX due to its side-effects. Therapies that can be used without concomitant MTX therefore, have an important place in RA management. In previous studies, UPA has shown efficacy in combination with stable background csDMARDs in RA patients who are DMA...

Keywords: JAK, Upadacitinib, Clinical, Efficacy

Efficacy and Safety of Sarilumab Monotherapy versus Adalimumab Monotherapy for the Treatment of Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis (MONARCH): a Randomised, Double-blind, Parallel-group Phase III Trial

Burmester GR, Lin Y, Patel R, van Adelsberg J, Mangan EK, Graham NMH, van Hoogstraten H, Bauer D, Vargas JI, Lee E-B.
Ann Rheum Dis 2016. DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2016-210310

In this Phase 3 superiority study (MONARCH) of patients with active RA who should not continue treatment with MTX because of intolerance or inadequate response, sarilumab monotherapy demonstrated superior efficacy to adalimumab (ADA) monotherapy. Patients receiving sarilumab versus ADA also reported greater improvement in health status, including a trend towards greater improvement in fatigue. In this randomised, multicentre study, patients received sarilumab 200 mg Q2W plus placebo (n=184) or ...

Keywords: IL-6, Sarilumab, Clinical, Phase 3