Scaly Skin as Deadly as Cancer Spurs Psoriasis Treatment

Psoriasis, with its patches of itchy, flaky skin, is often nothing more than a benign cosmetic problem. Yet for many people its as disabling and threatening as rheumatoid arthritis or cancer.

These patients often dont tolerate existing medicines, or see them lose their power over time. Pharmaceutical companies, helped by a new understanding of the biology behind the disease, have developed a new class of drug candidates that may be faster and more effective for the more serious forms of psoriasis. The front runner, Novartis AG, said yesterday that its experimental treatment met the main goals of a late-stage study.

Psoriasis is linked to higher rates of heart disease and diabetes, and a third of patients also develop a form of arthritis, which causes pain and swelling in and around the joints, said Kristian Reich, a dermatologist in Hamburg who also teaches at the University of Goettingen.

This is a really serious inflammatory illness, like rheumatoid arthritis, except that it doesnt affect the joints, it affects the skin, Reich, who has tested the Novartis drug and two others in clinical trials, said in a telephone interview.

Its impossible to gauge the full toll of psoriasis on peoples lives. In addition to the physical pain and danger of complications are the psychological wounds.

These people dont get the jobs they should be getting, Reich said. They dont marry the partners they should be marrying.

About 125 million people worldwide have the skin condition, including 7.5 million Americans, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation. About 20 percent to 30 percent of them have a moderate to serious form of the disease, of which half are taking some kind of medicine, John Hohneker, who heads drug development for autoimmune diseases at Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis, said in an interview.

We know that 40 to 50 percent are dissatisfied with their current therapy, Hohneker said.

Novartiss therapy, secukinumab, worked significantly better than Amgen Inc.s Enbrel, the $3.7 billion-a-year drug that is considered the standard of care, in clearing the skin in a late-stage study, the company said yesterday in a statement. The research is being presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology meeting in Istanbul, which began Oct. 2.

Novartis shares fell 0.8 percent to 67.75 Swiss francs at 10:07 a.m. in Zurich trading today. The shares have gained about 18 percent this year, compared with a 15 percent gain on the Bloomberg European Pharmaceutical Index of 19 companies.

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Scaly Skin as Deadly as Cancer Spurs Psoriasis Treatment