Getting Cozy with Cosentyx. Here is the information about the drug according to NCBI.
Secukinumab (Cosentyx®)
Secukinumab is a fully human G1k monoclonal antibody, which selectively binds and inhibits IL-17A. It is currently FDA approved for plaque psoriasis, ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and active non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis. Dosing of secukinumab for the treatment of psoriasis starts with a loading dose of 300 mg given SC at weeks 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, followed by a maintenance dose of 300 mg SC every 4 weeks. In patients with lower body weight and minimal disease severity, 150 mg may be acceptable for maintenance dosing. For patients who may need higher doses, such as those with resistant disease and/or higher BMI, published data show a possible benefit of increasing dosing of secukinumab to 300mg SC every 2 weeks during maintenance. Higher dosing resulted in numerically superior efficacy, but due to size of the study, the difference was not statistically significant.
Secukinumab has excellent efficacy in the treatment of several disease domains. Dedicated studies for difficult to treat areas such as scalp, nail and palmoplantar psoriasis have been completed with data showing sustained efficacy for greater than 2 years for the latter two conditions. Secukinumab possesses higher efficacy versus several other subcutaneous biologic agents, showing superiority in head-to-head trials against both etanercept and ustekinumab. It also is the only biologic with a study showing efficacy for the treatment of axial psoriatic arthritis. Additionally, it has been recognized by the FDA for its efficacy in inhibiting psoriatic joint destruction, making it a better choice vs. an IL-23 or IL 12/23 agent for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis.
Clear skin responses (PASI 100) was greater among secukinumab treated patients compared to ustekinumab at every time point from week 4 out to week 16 in the CLARITY study.
Along with its exceptional clinical efficacy, it also has an extremely high recapture rate. After abrupt discontinuation of the drug and subsequent flare, restarting secukinumab led to 95% of patients achieving PASI 75 by week 12.
Secukinumab has the longest track record for safety in real-world usage out of all the IL-17 inhibitors and no black box safety warnings. It is one of the best tolerated biologic injectables in terms of injection site reactions and pain. While there is an already established association of increased re-activation and onset of tuberculosis risk in some biologics, particularly with TNF-alpha inhibitors, no study to date has found evidence of an increased tuberculosis risk in secukinumab.
There are very few adverse reactions of concern associated with secukinumab. Patients using secukinumab were found to have a mild increase in superficial fungal and yeast infections. Fungal rates in a phase III study for secukinumab, while increased over placebo, were less than 1%. Mucocutaneous candidiasis in the secukinumab treatment group was 1.2% vs. 0.3% placebo. Additionally, studies show an increased risk of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD); however, the incidence of new-onset IBD is less than 1 out of 1000 patients on secukinumab.
Overcoming Psoriasis has several drug specific groups and pages. For a more intimate experience about this medication I suggest you join our group(s) on Facebook. The medication support group for this specific medication is called Cosentyx support group. Thank you in advance for being a member. We strive to get you the most accurate and latest information possible.
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