Johnson & Johnson’s first-ever clinical study in psoriasis with patients of color found its treatment Tremfya works similarly across diverse populations, but that’s not the only result it’s amplifying.
The pharma is evaluating how the study can translate to meeting patient and physicians’ unmet needs, including use of the 20,000 clinical images collected during the diverse skin tone study. While plans are still in the works, J&J expects to use the robust database for general education as well as medical training and physician guidance.
Daphne Chan“Our intent is to provide a platform and archive of imagery across skin tones that both the lay population as well as the healthcare professional population in training or practice can benefit from seeing all shades of psoriasis,” said Daphne Chan, J&J’s head of dermatology medical affairs.
“Less than 20% of medical education materials involve representation across skin tones and people of color, so we really feel this trial can take a huge step forward in contributing to that gap,” she added.
J&J’s Janssen debuted a digital “Beyond the Textbook” psoriasis primer in April aimed at helping physicians and medical students understand inequity issues around the condition and including images. Chan said the online book will be “one of the many different mechanisms” it looks at for using the images from the study.
Another aim moving forward after the Phase IIIb VISIBLE study’s first readout last week is to use the images and other data such as calorimetry and patient and physician observations to look at new angles in the disease. For instance, the study identified post-inflammatory pigment alterations in psoriasis that, as Chan pointed out, Janssen dermatology has not investigated formally before.
More generally, J&J also plans to dive into the data to see what else can be surfaced around quality of life measures, biomarkers and other pharmacogenomics across the diverse populations studied.
“We’ve just read out cohort A of the data and the second cohort is going to be dealt imminently,” Chan said, adding the next set of data focus on moderate-to-severe scalp psoriasis.
While J&J believes it is the first biopharma to do a prospective randomized control trial in psoriasis with 100% of the participants who are people of color, other pharmas are working on similar efforts, spurred in part by FDA guidance to incorporate diversity in studies and requiring diversity action plans for clinical trials.
Roche’s Genentech published results earlier this month from its first clinical study in multiple sclerosis exclusively with Black and Hispanic patients. GSK has also conducted studies in systemic lupus erythematosus solely with Black and Hispanic patients.
