ACR Congress Review 2019

ACR 2019
Conference Highlights
Chairman’s Welcome
Dear CSF Member,
Welcome to this year’s selection of ACR abstracts on cytokine signalling agents and my ‘Chairman’s picks’.
As in previous years, there continued to be an intense focus on the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, with late stage trial results
from filgotinib, peficitinib and newly approved upadacitinib – as well as a host of real-world and trial data for the more
established baricitinib and tofacitinib.
The largest number of trial abstracts concern upadacitinib. Key among them are the 48-week data from SELECT
MONOTHERAPY [513], SELECT-EARLY [928] and 60-week data from SELECT BEYOND [518], and SELECT NEXT [538].
There is an interesting study analysing the clinical and functional outcomes of switching between upadacitinib and
adalimumab following initial non-response [2907] and another looking into structural joint damage inhibition with upadacitinib
monotherapy and combination use [547].
For filgotinib, Combe et al and Westhovens et al presented data from the FINCH trials [506; 927], whilst Takeuchi et al
presented data on the inhibition of joint destruction with peficitinib in combination with methotrexate [507].
There is new clinical data for both tofacitinib and baricitinib – with a phase 3 study assessing disease trajectories in baricitinib
patients [1350], and a look at MTX-withdrawal in patients taking the extended-release formulation of tofacitinib [1412].
Real-world studies examined the utility of these two drugs in clinical practice, exploring the impact of time since first
diagnosis on tofacitinib [1484] and an updated baricitinib safety profile with patients exposed for up to 7 years [847].
At this year’s congress there was a focus on safety and patient reported outcomes, with pain relief in patients investigated
for both baricitinib [1407] and tofacitinib [1502]. MACE and VTEs are also in the spotlight with meta analyses across JAK
inhibitors [2358] and data for upadacitinib [846] being presented.
We also saw Phase 2 data from Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor fenebrutinib [929]. It will be important to see how
these agents progress over the coming years, and to find out what hope they can offer to patients who fail on current
therapies.
Within the following pages, we share our selection of the congress highlights, including my ‘Chairman’s picks’. As always,
thank you for your continued support, and we hope you enjoyed your time in Atlanta at ACR 2019!
Kind regards,
Prof. Iain McInnes