Drug Survival of Biologics for Psoriasis in Canada: Real-World Patterns and Implications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58931/cdt.2025.64149Abstract
Biologic therapies have transformed psoriasis management, and real-world data are essential for understanding long-term treatment success. Drug survival—how long patients remain on biologics—varies across drug classes and is generally higher in biologic-naïve patients. Canadian studies demonstrate that biologics from the interleukin (IL)-12/23, IL-17 and IL-23 classes exhibit longer persistence rates. However, drug survival alone is not a comprehensive measure of efficacy, because it may not account for dose modifications or interval adjustments that frequently occur in clinical practice. As drug survival reflects the duration of time on a single therapy, it may not adequately capture the rate at which patients switch between biologic treatments. The switch rate captures how often patients change biologics within classes or to a different class, reflecting treatment modification due to inefficacy or side effects. Although Canadian data on biologic switch rates are limited, U.S. findings show that IL-23 inhibitors have the lowest rates. Collectively, the evaluation of drug survival, therapeutic modifications, and switch rates in real-world settings offers a comprehensive framework to inform dermatological clinical practice in Canada.
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