According to Johnson & Johnson (JNJ, Financial) the “experimental Sirukumab treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) showed mixed results against AbbVie Inc. (ABBV, Financial)'s top-selling Humira in a large trial.”
RA is a progressive autoimmune and chronic inflammatory disease that affects the joints of the body. The disease is triggered by an abnormal reaction of the immune system. It is more prevalent in women and usually occurs between the ages of 40 and 60. Symptoms get worse over time.
The treatment is based on the administration of drugs whose active ingredients have immune-suppressant effect, either by inhibiting the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) protein, which is the case with AbbVie’s Humira, or inhibiting the IL-6 protein, which is the case  withJ&J’s Sirukumab. Both proteins are responsible for the onset of joint inflammation.
There are several medical tests to diagnose RA. These tests range from blood tests that identify with certainty an internal inflammation process (e.g., ESR and C-reactive protein tests) and detect antibodies to RA to medical examinations such as X-rays and MRIs to show articular lesions. These tests are needed for the diagnosis and to monitor disease remission.
Remission in rheumatoid arthritis can be monitored over time by various composite outcome measures with the American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism remission criteria being the latest tool introduced and available to rheumatologists.
Each tool provides a scale of value to classify the disease from inactive to very active or severe.
With reference to one of these measures in RA patients with a disease activity that ranges from moderate to severe, Sirukumab showed to have much more efficacy than Humira in improving the clinical conditions of these patients. After that the disease activity was measured from the initial value during the Phase III study.
“In the 559-patient study, those taking Sirukumab scored declines after 24 weeks of 2.58 with a low dose and 2.96 with a high dose on a widely used nine-point scale of disease activity. That compared favorably with an average decline of 2.19 for similar patients taking Humira, allowing Sirukumab to achieve one of its two primary trial goals, J&J said.” –Â Reuters
But when the remission of RA patients was measured against another composite outcome measure, there weren’t any significant differences in the improvement of the disease activity between the two treatments.
In RA patients treated with Sirukumab at high dose, the percentage of serious side effects was higher than in the RA patients treated with AbbVie’s Humira.
AbbVie closed at $63.10 on Nov. 11, down 1.41% from the previous trading day with 10,201,578 shares traded on the New York Stock Echange.
Johnson & Johnson closed at $118.47, down 0.90% from the previous trading day with 8,134,783 shares traded on the NYSE.
Disclosure: I have no positions neither in Johnson & Johnson nor AbbVie.
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