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Fourteen years have passed since approval of a new oral therapy for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The standard of care has been methotrexate alone or in combination with another therapy, usually an injectable or infused biologic therapy. In two manufacturer-sponsored, randomized trials, researchers examined safety and efficacy of the oral Janus kinase inhibitor tofacitinib, which is not yet FDA-approved.
In one study, researchers compared tofacitinib with placebo in 611 RA patients who exhibited inadequate responses to at least one medication, including methotrexate and biologics. At 3 months, the ACR20 response rate (i.e., American College of Rheumatology defined improvement of ≥20% in several clinical outcomes) was significantly higher in the…