Lebrikizumab Shows Promise in Long-Term Atopic Dermatitis Control: Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD

Raj Chovatiya, MD, PhD, MSCI, clinical associate professor of medicine at Rosalind Franklin University Chicago Medical School and founder and director of the Center for Medical Dermatology/Immunology Research, highlights several aspects that distinguish lebrikizumab (Ebglyss; Eli Lilly) from other biologics targeting the IL-4/IL-13 pathway, based on recent data from various studies.

According to Chovatiya, lebrikizumab stands out for its potential as a first line biologic therapeutic option due to its demonstrated long-term efficacy, consistent results across diverse patient types, and effectiveness in individuals with prior biologic experience.

This transcript was lightly edited for clarity; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Compared with other biologics targeting the IL-4/IL-13 pathway, what distinguishes lebrikizumab-lbkz in terms of long-term efficacy and safety profiles?

There's been a lot of exciting data presented about lebrikizumab recently, and even in this past AAD [American Academy of Dermatology] meeting where we saw some updates from the longer-term results from the ADjoin study [NCT04392154], as well as smaller updates from the ADmirable [NCT05372419] and ADapt [NCT05369403] studies.

I think those allow us to really paint the picture of where there are really good use scenarios for a medication like lebrikizumab. Knowing that we don't specifically have head-to-head data amongst our biologic therapies in the atopic dermatitis realm, I kind of like to let the clinical data do the talking, to help guide us.

In terms of some of the most recent updates we saw, in terms of longer-term data for people that were on therapy for up to 3 years, what we saw were for people who were pretty good responders after the first few months of therapy, a very high percentage number of them that are on once a month dosing over the course of the next few years, about half of those people who maintained therapy the entire time, actually got total skin clearance. A good chunk of those people actually had even 90% or higher efficacy.

What that tells me is that one place where lebrikizumab seems to really have strong data is in the long run, for really allowing people to have these durable responses and relatively stable responses over a long period of time.

Another couple of areas where I think lebrikizumab has set itself apart in terms of some of the data, the ADmirable study, of course, was very unique. It was focused on patients with skin of color, to really paint this picture that no matter what somebody may choose to identify, as far as race, ethnicity, Fitzpatrick skin type, everything in between, even different lesional types, bottom line, there was consistent efficacy across these populations. I think that's another helpful thing too, when you're really trying to think about what is a biologic therapy that really could be for anybody 12 and up who has moderate to severe disease.

Finally, some results from the ADapt study were really helpful too, because this was a study looking at people who had previous biologic experience. These were individuals who may have had lack of efficacy, adverse events, some type of intolerance, or just off therapy for other reasons. These individuals also had a relatively consistent response to lebrikizumab, very similar to the ADvocate1 [NCT04146363] and ADvocate2 [NCT04146363] clinical trial programs that were in the pivotal phase 3 [trials] for lebrikizumab. That tells us that even in people who may have had biologic experience previously, they also might be good candidates for lebrikizumab.

I think that sort of to round it out, really as a first-line biologic therapeutic option, in some cases, potentially a second-line biologic therapeutic option, really across diversity of patient types and for people seeking long-term control, lebrikizumab can really check the box in all these categories.