Study identifies factors linked with better medication response for treatment of juvenile arthritis

Among patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who initiated treatment with the drug etanercept (Pfizer and Amgen’s blockbuster arthritis and psoriasis drug Enbrel), one-third achieved an excellent response, and this response was associated with low measures of disability at study entry, younger age at the onset of JIA, and fewer disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs used before initiating etanercept according to a study appearing in JAMA.

The study has been released early on-line to coincide with its presentation at the American College of Rheumatology/Association of Rheumatology Health Professionals Annual Scientific Meeting.

Enbrel, which generated third-quarter 2011 sales of $957 million for Pfizer and $925 million for Amgen, was approved a decade ago by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of JIA. "Since the development of biological agents, the pharmacological treatment approach of JIA is changing rapidly, and synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic agents (DMARDs) are used earlier in the disease course, which seem to provide better long-term outcomes. As a result of these treatment successes, a treatment goal of reaching inactive disease now seems realistic. However, inactive disease is still not achieved in a substantial proportion of cases, and current approaches need to be optimized even more," according to background information in the article.