Another New Drug for Psoriasis

TUESDAY, Dec. 16, 2003 (HealthDayNews) -- The new biologic drug called efalizumab reduces the thick, red, scaly skin lesions caused by psoriasis and offers improved quality of life to people with the skin disease.

So reports the second study in as many months, this one in the Dec. 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Biologics are a new approach to treating psoriasis. The symptom relief with biologics is achieved without many of the side effects of traditional psoriasis treatment," lead author Dr. Kenneth Gordon, director of the Loyola Psoriasis Center at the Loyola University Health System in Illinois, says in a prepared statement.

"Biologics are injected, instead of swallowed, and block immune cells that produce the dry, flaky skin," Gordon says.

The study included 556 adult psoriasis patients at 30 U.S. and Canadian centers. The patients received weekly injections of the drug or placebo for three months. The extent of the patients' psoriasis on the head, upper and lower limbs, and trunk was assessed, along with the degree of scaling and thickness.

"The efalizumab treatment reduced the frequency and severity of psoriasis symptoms, particularly in the severity of itching and scaling," says Gordon, who has received research funding from Genentech Inc., which makes efalizumab under the brand name Raptiva.

Similar findings on the same drug were reported last month in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More information

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