Arthritis Clinical Trials

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are generally treated with Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF) inhibitors as second-line therapy if an oral medication such as methotrexate (MTX) is not adequate to control the symptoms. If one anti-TNF therapy does not lead to adequate symptom control, the current standard of care dictates switching to another approved anti-TNF agent, even though response rates deteriorate with each cycle. Pilot research at Biogen Idec and academic collaborators has developed a panel of gene expression markers with approximately 90% positive and negative predictive values to identify individuals who did not achieve European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Disease Activity Score (DAS)-28 Good response after 14 weeks of treatment. Such a biomarker panel could be used as a diagnostic test to direct therapeutic options.