During the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology Congress in Vienna, Johnson & Johnson presented data on their experimental psoriasis drug, guselkumab.  Guselkumab targets a protein, interleukin-23, which is specifically involved with the skin’s immune responses. Guselkumab cleared or nearly cleared the skin of 81% of patients during a final-stage study on 837 patients over 48 weeks.

By comparison, Abbvie’s Humira, which is also used to treat psoriasis, cleared or nearly cleared the skin of 55% of patients over 48 patients during the final-stage study.  Humira works by a different mechanism to guselkumab, by limiting the activity of tumor necrosis factor that overreacts in psoriasis and other diseases.  Humira is a rival product to Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade. As we’ve posted (here and here, for example), biosimilar versions of Remicade have been accepted by the FDA.  We also posted that biosimilar competition has led to a drop in sales for Remicade.

Stay tuned to the Big Molecule Watch blog on further developments on this and new biosimilar products.