Exploring and Understanding Clinical Trials for Psoriasis

If you’re looking for a more effective psoriasis treatment, you may want to explore clinical trials. Read on for risks, benefits, and studies that are currently recruiting.

Clinical trials help researchers and pharmaceutical companies test the safety and effectiveness of new medical treatments.

Not everyone with psoriasis qualifies to join a clinical trial. They are also not without some potential risks.

But joining a trial you qualify for can help improve treatments and outcomes for everyone.

What are clinical trials?

Clinical trials are a kind of research and development study. Their purpose is to help pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and other interested parties — like the government — assess the safety and effectiveness of new medical treatments.

One of the biggest goals of a clinical trial is to test if the new treatment is more effective than current options or has less severe side effects compared to available options.

Often, researchers hope to improve quality of life. They may also study other things, like the importance of caregivers and support in treatment or new methods to help prevent worsening disease.

There are five phases of clinical trials. They include:

• Early phase 1 (formerly phase 0): an exploratory phase without therapeutic goals, which investigates whether the treatment affects the body and involves very limited human exposure to the treatment
• Phase 1: treatment tested in a small group of people (with and without the condition) for the first time to evaluate safety and dosing
• Phase 2: treatment tested in a larger group of participants with the studied condition to help determine short-term efficacy, side effects, and safety
• Phase 3: treatment tested in a very large group (often thousands of people), comparing the new therapy against other therapies, monitoring for side effects and effectiveness, and evaluating different doses
• Phase 4: occurs after the treatment is released for general use and is designed to monitor efficacy and side effects associated with widespread use

Clinical trials have different criteria for joining, so you may not qualify for all or any of the available trials. They also may not be in easy locations for you to reach.

But if you are interested in joining, you can check on ClinicalTrials.gov or talk with your healthcare professionals to see if they know of any trials coming up that you may want to join.

Risks and benefits of clinical trials

When you participate in a clinical trial, you team up with researchers to help advance treatment options.

Some common reasons you may choose to join clinical trials include:

• a desire to help future generations with psoriasis and reduce its overall impact
• wanting to play a more active role in your health
• other treatments haven’t helped or done enough to help you manage psoriasis

If the treatment is effective for you and others, it could mean you’ll be able to use it again in the future.

There are risks associated with clinical trials. Each stage is testing the safety of the new medication or medical treatment for psoriasis. You also may experience no, mild, moderate, or potentially severe side effects.

If you do participate in a trial and experience side effects, you’ll need to let the researchers conducting the study know.

There’s also a chance that the new medical therapy for psoriasis will have no clinical impact on you.

You may also receive the control, which means that you may not receive any active treatment during the clinical trial.

You will continue to see your regular doctors or healthcare professionals during your participation in the clinical trial. They can help monitor your overall health.

Current recruiting clinical trials for psoriasis

At any given time, several clinical trials are recruiting, ongoing, or completed for psoriasis. At the time of writing this article, there were over 2,000 trials listed on ClinicalTrials.gov when searching for “psoriasis.”

While that may seem overwhelming, many of the studies listed are “completed” or are taking place in different areas around the world.

To help when searching, enter in the following filters:

• Condition/Disease: psoriasis
• Study status: select the button next to “recruiting and not yet recruiting studies”
• Location: your town, state, or general location

The “location” filter isn’t very specific, but it does seem to narrow down the search to the United States when entering your state.

You can also add other information, such as treatments you’re interested in, or anything you feel may help you find a trial you qualify for.

Some psoriasis treatments currently under investigation in clinical trials and actively seeking participants include:

Deucravacitinib

• Qualifying conditions: non-pustular palmoplantar and genital psoriasis
• Location(s): many throughout the United States
• Phase: 4

TAK-279

• Qualifying conditions: moderate to severe plaque psoriasis
• Location(s): over 280 locations in the United States
• Phase: 3

LY3972406 

• Qualifying conditions: adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis
• Location(s): 11 locations across the United States
• Phase: 2

ESK-001

• Qualifying conditions: moderate to severe plaque psoriasis
• Location(s): over 50 locations throughout the United States
• Phase: 3

TLL018

• Qualifying conditions: moderate to severe plaque psoriasis
• Location(s): 26 locations throughout the United States
• Phase: 2

Ixekizumab concomitantly administered with tirzepatide

• Qualifying conditions: adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis and obesity or overweight
• Location(s): 75 locations throughout the United States
• Phase: 3

Takeaway

Clinical trials for psoriasis help researchers find new, effective, and safe medical treatments. If successful, these treatments may be approved and made available to the general public.

Several clinical trials occur throughout the world every year. You may not qualify for all clinical trials or be close to one that’s recruiting.

You can check for recruiting clinical trials at ClinicalTrials.gov. You may also be able to find information at local treatment centers and healthcare facilities.

While clinical trials can be rewarding and important, they do have some risks. You may experience mild to severe side effects, but you will also be closely monitored if something does occur.