Deucravacitinib in moderate-to-severe psoriasis

Tweetable abstractDeucravacitinib is a selective small-molecule inhibitor of TYK2 that has proven to be safe and efficacious in the use of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis during clinical trial development. #psoriasis #deucravacitinib #TYK2 Plain language summaryPsoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects up to 1 in 20 people worldwide. A patient's quality of life and health can be drastically affected by psoriasis. The number of therapies for patients with moderate to severe psoriasis has steadily grown over the past two decades, with biologic immunotherapies being the primary medications developed. However, oral therapies have often lagged in development. Deucravacitinib is an oral small molecule that inhibits the activity of TYK2, a crucial element of the psoriasis pathway. Deucravacitinib has demonstrated safety and efficacy in moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in clinical trials and is also being studied for multiple other diseases, including Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, lupus (systemic, discoid and subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus) and psoriatic arthritis. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects up to 1 in 20 people worldwide. A patient's quality of life and health can be drastically affected by psoriasis. The number of therapies for patients with moderate to severe psoriasis has steadily grown over the past two decades, with biologic immunotherapies being the primary agents developed. However, new small-molecule oral therapies have lagged in development. Deucravacitinib is an oral small molecule that inhibits the activity of TYK2, a member of the JAK family. Deucravacitinib works by allosterically inhibiting TYK2, increasing the specificity of this agent for TYK2 rather than other members of this kinase family. Deucravacitinib has demonstrated safety and efficacy in moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in clinical trial development, with >50% of patients on deucravacitinib 6 mg daily achieving >= 75% reduction in Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score from baseline at 16 weeks versus 9-13% on placebo and 35-41% on apremilast 30 mg twice daily in phase III clinical trials.