A pill that kept working for 76 weeks: new hope for hard-to-treat rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a painful condition where the immune system attacks the joints — and for some people, even powerful injected biologic medicines stop helping. A new daily pill, zemprocitinib, has now held its gains for a year and a half in a large late-stage trial. The Phase III study followed 430 adults in China whose arthritis had not responded to, or who could not tolerate, biologic drugs. By week 76, 91.8% of those on continuous treatment had improved by at least 20% on the standard arthritis score, 62.4% had improved by at least 70%, and 81.4% had reached low disease activity — with no new safety concerns appearing over the long term. People who switched from a dummy pill to the real one at week 24 caught up to nearly the same results.

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