A Study to Assess the Safety and Efficacy of Tocilizumab in Patients With Active Rheumatoid Arthritis

Summary

This 2 arm study will assess the safety and efficacy of tocilizumab monotherapy versus methotrexate in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Patients will be randomized to receive tocilizumab 8mg/kg iv every 4 weeks plus placebo po weekly, or methotrexate 7.5-20mg po weekly plus placebo iv every 4 weeks. The anticipated time on study treatment is 3-12 months and the target sample size is 500+ individuals.

Timeline

Start

2005-07

Primary completion

2007-12

Completion

2007-12

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

paper the intention-to-treat analysis demonstrated that tocilizumab was better than methotrexate treatment with a higher ACR20 response (69.9 vs 52.5%; p<0.001) PMID 19297346 ↗

Publications

• Drobinski PJ, Bay-Jensen AC, Karsdal MA, Sardar S, Siebuhr AS. Connective tissue remodelling is differently modulated by tocilizumab versus methotrexate monotherapy in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis: the AMBITION study. Arthritis Res Ther. 2021 Jan 7;23(1):13. doi: 10.1186/s13075-020-02378-7.
• Strand V, Michalska M, Birchwood C, Pei J, Tuckwell K, Finch R, Gabay C, Kavanaugh A, Jones G. Impact of tocilizumab monotherapy on patient-reported outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis from two randomised controlled trials. RMD Open. 2017 Sep 14;3(2):e000496. doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2017-000496. eCollection 2017.
• Jones G, Wallace T, McIntosh MJ, Brockwell L, Gomez-Reino JJ, Sebba A. Five-year Efficacy and Safety of Tocilizumab Monotherapy in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Who Were Methotrexate- and Biologic-naive or Free of Methotrexate for 6 Months: the AMBITION Study. J Rheumatol. 2017 Feb;44(2):142-146. doi: 10.3899/jrheum.160287. Epub 2016 Dec 1.
• Wang J, Bansal AT, Martin M, Germer S, Benayed R, Essioux L, Lee JS, Begovich A, Hemmings A, Kenwright A, Taylor KE, Upmanyu R, Cutler P, Harari O, Marchini J, Criswell LA, Platt A. Genome-wide association analysis implicates the involvement of eight loci with response to tocilizumab for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Pharmacogenomics J. 2013 Jun;13(3):235-41. doi: 10.1038/tpj.2012.8. Epub 2012 Apr 10.
• Jones G, Sebba A, Gu J, Lowenstein MB, Calvo A, Gomez-Reino JJ, Siri DA, Tomsic M, Alecock E, Woodworth T, Genovese MC. Comparison of tocilizumab monotherapy versus methotrexate monotherapy in patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis: the AMBITION study. Ann Rheum Dis. 2010 Jan;69(1):88-96. doi: 10.1136/ard.2008.105197.

Drugs

Indications