A pill, not an infusion: a daily tablet kept ulcerative colitis quiet for 76 weeks

Ulcerative colitis is a long-term inflammation of the bowel that flares and fades, and many of the strongest medicines for it arrive by injection or drip. Icotrokinra is different: a once-a-day tablet, the first of its kind, that blocks the signal (called IL-23) that helps drive the inflammation. In a long-term follow-up of a mid-stage trial, presented at a major gut-medicine meeting in Nashville and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, 136 patients stayed on the treatment for 76 weeks. Most kept their response, about 60% were in remission overall, and 97% of those in remission no longer needed steroids. Serious side effects were less common on the drug than on placebo in the earlier phase. A daily pill will not suit everyone, and bigger trials are still running — but for people who dread injections, the lead investigator called it 'an easier sell.'

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation