Sirukumab at the ACR 2015 Meeting in San Francisco

There has been one publication on sirukumab at the ACR 2015 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Sirukumab is a human MAB that binds to IL-6, designed for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. So sirukumab will compete with tocilizumab. I’ve seen the first studies at the EULAR 2012 Meeting in Berlin. So now we have one study. You know, how suspicious I am, and this makes me even more suspicious.

Tsutomu Takeuchi and colleagues presented: “One-Year Safety of Sirukumab Monotherapy: Results from a Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-Group, Multicenter Study in Japanese Subjects with Moderate to Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis”. It’s a phase 2 study. Conclusions: “Sirukumab 50mg q4 and 100mg q2 monotherapy dose regimens for 52 weeks were well tolerated in Japanese RA patients. […] The proportions of ACR 20/50/70 responses at Week 24 in the 100mg q2 group were numerically higher than those in the 50mg q4 group; however, the number of subjects was too limited to make conclusions about dose response.”

Why is the sponsor not pushing to get to the market? If he wants to take part of the IL-6 piece of the cake, he should hurry as the cake is cut into more and more pieces. I see a lack of commitment. And actually I don’t see a medical reason to have another IL-6 inhibitor.

References:

Takeuchi T, Yamanaka H, Harigai M, Tamamura R, Kato Y, Ukyo Y, Nakano T, Ota T, Hsu B, Tanaka Y. One-Year Safety of Sirukumab Monotherapy: Results from a Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-Group, Multicenter Study in Japanese Subjects with Moderate to Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2015; 67 (suppl 10). http://acrabstracts.org/abstract/one-year-safety-of-sirukumab-monotherapy-results-from-a-randomized-double-blind-parallel-group-multicenter-study-in-japanese-subjects-with-moderate-to-severe-rheumatoid-arthritis/. Accessed November 19, 2015.