A Study of Belimumab Administered Subcutaneously in Subjects With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE)

Summary

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of belimumab administered subcutaneously (SC) to adult subjects with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).

Timeline

Start

2011-11-16

Primary completion

2015-02-13

Completion

2015-10-01

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

registry Placebo SC vs Belimumab 200 mg SC; p = 0.0006; Odds Ratio (OR) 1.68 (95% CI 1.25 to 2.25) NCT01484496 ↗

paper More patients who received belimumab were SRI4 responders than those who received placebo (61.4% versus 48.4% PMID 28118533 ↗

release “For the primary efficacy endpoint (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Responder Index (SRI) at Week 52), significantly more patients treated with belimumab administered subcutaneously plus SoC (60.8%)” gsk.com ↗

release “BLISS-SC is the third successful Phase III study for belimumab in SLE.” gsk.com ↗

Publications

• Depascale R, Da Mutten R, Lindblom J, Cetrez N, Palazzo L, Iaccarino L, Doria A, Nikolopoulos D, Gatto M, Parodis I. Unsupervised machine learning identifies distinct SLE patient endotypes with differential response to belimumab. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2025 Aug 1;64(8):4650-4658. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/keaf215.
• Parodis I, Lindblom J, Levy RA, Zen M, Cetrez N, Gomez A, Oon S, Henning C, Khamashta M, Quasny HA, Chauhan D, Askanase A, van Vollenhoven R, Nikpour M. Attainment of remission and low disease activity after treatment with belimumab in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: a post-hoc analysis of pooled data from five randomised clinical trials. Lancet Rheumatol. 2024 Nov;6(11):e751-e761. doi: 10.1016/S2665-9913(24)00162-0. Epub 2024 Aug 26.
• Nikolopoulos D, Cetrez N, Lindblom J, Parodis I. Neuropsychiatric involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus contributes to organ damage beyond the nervous system: a post-hoc analysis of 5 phase III randomized clinical trials. Rheumatol Int. 2024 Sep;44(9):1679-1689. doi: 10.1007/s00296-024-05667-5. Epub 2024 Aug 8.
• Rendas-Baum R, Chen WH, Gairy K, Anderson S, Henning C, Hammer A, Kosinski M. SF-36v2 and FACIT-Fatigue quality of life improvements with organ-specific SELENA-SLEDAI response and belimumab treatment in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus Sci Med. 2024 May 8;11(1):e001118. doi: 10.1136/lupus-2023-001118.
• Jagerback S, Gomez A, Parodis I. Predictors of renal flares in systemic lupus erythematosus: a post-hoc analysis of four phase III clinical trials of belimumab. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2025 Feb 1;64(2):623-631. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/keae023.
• Gomez A, Jagerback S, Sjowall C, Parodis I. Belimumab and antimalarials combined against renal flares in patients treated for extra-renal systemic lupus erythematosus: results from 4 phase III clinical trials. Rheumatology (Oxford). 2024 Feb 1;63(2):338-348. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kead253.
• Brunner HI, Abud-Mendoza C, Mori M, Pilkington CA, Syed R, Takei S, Viola DO, Furie RA, Navarra S, Zhang F, Bass DL, Eriksson G, Hammer AE, Ji BN, Okily M, Roth DA, Quasny H, Ruperto N. Efficacy and safety of belimumab in paediatric and adult patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: an across-study comparison. RMD Open. 2021 Sep;7(3):e001747. doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2021-001747.
• Hannon CW, McCourt C, Lima HC, Chen S, Bennett C. Interventions for cutaneous disease in systemic lupus erythematosus. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2021 Mar 9;3(3):CD007478. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD007478.pub2.
• Maslen T, Bruce IN, D'Cruz D, Ianosev M, Bass DL, Wilkinson C, Roth DA. Efficacy of belimumab in two serologically distinct high disease activity subgroups of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: post-hoc analysis of data from the phase III programme. Lupus Sci Med. 2021 Feb;8(1):e000459. doi: 10.1136/lupus-2020-000459.
• Lokhandwala T, Yue B, Coutinho AD, Bell CF. Within-trial economic analysis of flare data from the BLISS-SC trial of subcutaneous belimumab in systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus Sci Med. 2021 Feb;8(1):e000438. doi: 10.1136/lupus-2020-000438.
• Doria A, Bass D, Schwarting A, Hammer A, Gordon D, Scheinberg M, Fox NL, Groark J, Stohl W, Kleoudis C, Roth D. A 6-month open-label extension study of the safety and efficacy of subcutaneous belimumab in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Lupus. 2018 Aug;27(9):1489-1498. doi: 10.1177/0961203318777634. Epub 2018 May 28.
• Doria A, Stohl W, Schwarting A, Okada M, Scheinberg M, van Vollenhoven R, Hammer AE, Groark J, Bass D, Fox NL, Roth D, Gordon D. Efficacy and Safety of Subcutaneous Belimumab in Anti-Double-Stranded DNA-Positive, Hypocomplementemic Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2018 Aug;70(8):1256-1264. doi: 10.1002/art.40511. Epub 2018 Jun 15.
• Stohl W, Schwarting A, Okada M, Scheinberg M, Doria A, Hammer AE, Kleoudis C, Groark J, Bass D, Fox NL, Roth D, Gordon D. Efficacy and Safety of Subcutaneous Belimumab in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Fifty-Two-Week Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2017 May;69(5):1016-1027. doi: 10.1002/art.40049. Epub 2017 Apr 7.

Drugs

Evaluation	Drug	Modality	Dose	Route
Subject	Belimumab	Monoclonal antibody	200 mg	Subcutaneous

Indications