Humira improves work performance in RA patients

US health care major Abbott Laboratories says that new trial data show that rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with its Humira (adalimumab) stayed working longer, had fewer absences and reported greater improvements in work performance.

Results from three studies were presented at the European League Against Rheumatism annual congress, held in Barcelona, Spain. One groundbreaking evaluation, the PROWD trial, was the first prospective, placebo-controlled, anti-tumor necrosis factor study that investigated the length of time RA patients stayed at work. PROWD showed that significantly more patients taking methotrexate alone reported job loss or imminent job loss after 56 weeks compared with those treated with a combination of the two drugs.

A second study of patient-reported measures in paid workers and homemakers with early RA suggested that treatment with Humira and MTX significantly improved their ability to perform their responsibilities at two years. A third study showed that RA patients treated with Humira worked significantly longer compared with those taking disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), Abbot noted.