Laura Korb Ferris, MD, PhD: Implications of Trial Data for the Future of Psoriasis Treatment?

In this segment of her HCPLive interview, Laura Korb Ferris, MD, PhD, explored the implications of the phase 2b data from FRONTIER 1 on the first oral interleukin-23 receptor (IL-23R) antagonist peptide JNJ-2113 for the future of psoriasis treatment.

In her background, Ferris serves as both a Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute and as Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at UPMC’s Department of Dermatology.

After explaining the results of the trial, including that the JNJ-2113 treatment achieved all of the primary and secondary efficacy endpoints, she went into the significance of these results.

“I think what is significant here is that this is an oral medication,” Ferris stated. “So there are lots of reasons why patients may prefer an oral medication, and some patients are needle-phobic. And so for them, they'd rather have it in oral medication. You know there are (also) some situations in which we may want to be able to sort of easily stop and start medication.”

Ferris explained that if a patient with psoriasis has an upcoming vaccination or surgery, they may want to be able to stop a drug more quickly and, therefore, need dosing flexibility.

“For example, if we have drugs that could be given once or twice-a-day,” Ferris said. “We'll see what doses move forward into phase 3 studies here, but we do know that, historically, there are patients who would really rather have an oral medication. And I think that what we're seeing here is sort of biologic-like efficacy with an oral medication.”

She later described the larger implications of the study’s findings for patients with psoriasis.

“I think that this is going to be another great option for patients,” Ferris said. “I think that we're going to see more data, when the phase 3 study start and are completed…This doesn't have a large population of patients, and this was a relatively small population of 255 patients. You know, phase 3 studies are always going to be bigger. But I think that the results here are very encouraging.”

Though the trial was a small study and, consequently, had limited safety data, Ferris noted that there was not a significant safety signal. She added that it was encouraging to see no malignancies, death, or cardiovascular events.

For further information on Ferris’s views on the results, view the full interview segment above.

The quotes used in this description of the interview were edited for clarity.