Drug survival of secukinumab and ixekizumab for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis

BACKGROUND: Biologics targeting interleukin 17 are increasingly being used for treatment of moderate-to-severe psoriasis, but data on drug survival for these therapies remain scarce.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the drug survival of secukinumab and ixekizumab in a nationwide cohort of patients with psoriasis in Denmark.

METHODS: Using DERMBIO, we examined Danish patients receiving treatment with secukinumab or ixekizumab according to the standard in-label dosing. Kaplan-Meier plots were used to present survival curves.

RESULTS: In all, 368 and 62 patients received treatment with secukinumab and ixekizumab, respectively. In total, 40.7% and 12.9% of secukinumab- and ixekizumab-treated patients were bionaive. Ixekizumab-treated patients had received significantly more previous treatments. Over 12 months, 23.5% and 0.0% of bionaive secukinumab- and ixekizumab-treated patients discontinued therapy, respectively. Drug survival for bionaive and non-naive patients was lower for secukinumab than for ixekizumab. During the maximum 3 years of follow-up, secukinumab drug survival was lowest for patients who had previously been treated with 2 or more biologics, followed by patients treated with secukinumab as their second-ever biologic.

LIMITATIONS: The total number of patients and follow-up time were modest.

CONCLUSIONS: Drug survival was higher for ixekizumab even though secukinumab-treated patients had been treated with significantly fewer biologics before starting this drug.