Brett King, MD, on the Utility of JAK Inhibitors Across Medicine

Dr King reviews the broad utility of Janus kinase inhibitors across medicine from his own specialty of dermatology to rheumatology, gastroenterology, and more.

Brett King, MD, is an associate professor of dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. My name is Brett King. I am associate professor of dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. Today, I am going to talk to you about JAK inhibitors and their broad utility in dermatology and across medicine.

JAK inhibitors, of course, derive this emerging, very unique role across medical subspecialties for the reason that over 50 cytokines signal through the JAK/STAT pathway. Therefore, if one of the cytokines is a significant driver of disease, we have, with this class of molecule inhibitors, an opportunity to attenuate a disease process or numerous disease processes.

JAK inhibitors were initially approved for the treatment of myelofibrosis. And subsequently in hematology have been approved for the treatment of polycythemia vera, and most recently for acute GvH disease.

I think that that highlights something really interesting because we have a class of medicines that has utility, both in hematology and oncology as targeted treatment, but then also outside of hematology and oncology, in rheumatology, and gastroenterology, and now dermatology.

Tofacitinib was the first JAK inhibitor that was FDA-approved for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. This was in late 2012, and that drug has since been approved for psoriatic arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and now most recently juvenile idiopathic arthritis down to age 2.

Other JAK inhibitors have emerged during this time also with approval for rheumatoid arthritis. It's really been with the observation of the broad reach of this class of medicines that JAK inhibitors have emerged as such an exciting possibility for the treatment of a broad range of dermatologic diseases as well.

And so, I think what we're seeing is a single class of agent with reach across the entire spectrum of medical subspecialties which I think is what makes this particularly exciting.

Thank you very much for your time. I hope that you've found this discussion of JAK inhibitors and their emerging role across medicine to be helpful and informative. Bye-bye.