A Study in Participants With Moderate to Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis

Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine whether baricitinib therapy alone is noninferior to methotrexate (MTX) therapy alone in the treatment of moderate to severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in those who have had limited or no treatment with MTX and are naive to other conventional or biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs).

Timeline

Start

2012-11

Primary completion

2015-02

Completion

2015-08

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

paper The study met its primary objective. PMID 27723271 ↗

paper baricitinib monotherapy was found to be superior to MTX monotherapy at week 24, with a higher ACR20 response rate (77% versus 62%; P ≤ 0.01). PMID 27723271 ↗

Publications

• Landewe R, Sun L, Chen YF, Daojun M, van der Heijde D. Robust analyses for radiographic progression in rheumatoid arthritis. RMD Open. 2023 Apr;9(2):e002543. doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2022-002543.
• Taylor PC, Alten R, Alvaro Gracia JM, Kaneko Y, Walls C, Quebe A, Jia B, Bello N, Terres JR, Fleischmann R. Achieving pain control in early rheumatoid arthritis with baricitinib monotherapy or in combination with methotrexate versus methotrexate monotherapy. RMD Open. 2022 Mar;8(1):e001994. doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2021-001994.
• Taylor PC, Takeuchi T, Burmester GR, Durez P, Smolen JS, Deberdt W, Issa M, Terres JR, Bello N, Winthrop KL. Safety of baricitinib for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis over a median of 4.6 and up to 9.3 years of treatment: final results from long-term extension study and integrated database. Ann Rheum Dis. 2022 Mar;81(3):335-343. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2021-221276. Epub 2021 Oct 27.
• van der Heijde D, Kartman CE, Xie L, Beattie S, Schlichting D, Mo D, Durez P, Tanaka Y, Fleischmann R. Radiographic Progression of Structural Joint Damage Over 5 Years of Baricitinib Treatment in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis: Results From RA-BEYOND. J Rheumatol. 2022 Feb;49(2):133-141. doi: 10.3899/jrheum.210346. Epub 2021 Sep 15.
• Emery P, Tanaka Y, Cardillo T, Schlichting D, Rooney T, Beattie S, Helt C, Smolen JS. Temporary interruption of baricitinib: characterization of interruptions and effect on clinical outcomes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Res Ther. 2020 May 15;22(1):115. doi: 10.1186/s13075-020-02199-8.
• Fleischmann R, Takeuchi T, Schiff M, Schlichting D, Xie L, Issa M, Stoykov I, Lisse J, Martinez-Osuna P, Rooney T, Zerbini CAF. Efficacy and Safety of Long-Term Baricitinib With and Without Methotrexate for the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Experience With Baricitinib Monotherapy Continuation or After Switching From Methotrexate Monotherapy or Baricitinib Plus Methotrexate. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2020 Aug;72(8):1112-1121. doi: 10.1002/acr.24007.
• Smolen JS, Genovese MC, Takeuchi T, Hyslop DL, Macias WL, Rooney T, Chen L, Dickson CL, Riddle Camp J, Cardillo TE, Ishii T, Winthrop KL. Safety Profile of Baricitinib in Patients with Active Rheumatoid Arthritis with over 2 Years Median Time in Treatment. J Rheumatol. 2019 Jan;46(1):7-18. doi: 10.3899/jrheum.171361. Epub 2018 Sep 15.
• Taylor PC, Kremer JM, Emery P, Zuckerman SH, Ruotolo G, Zhong J, Chen L, Witt S, Saifan C, Kurzawa M, Otvos JD, Connelly MA, Macias WL, Schlichting DE, Rooney TP, de Bono S, McInnes IB. Lipid profile and effect of statin treatment in pooled phase II and phase III baricitinib studies. Ann Rheum Dis. 2018 Jul;77(7):988-995. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-212461. Epub 2018 Feb 20.
• Schiff M, Takeuchi T, Fleischmann R, Gaich CL, DeLozier AM, Schlichting D, Kuo WL, Won JE, Carmack T, Rooney T, Durez P, Shaikh S, Hidalgo RP, van Vollenhoven R, Zerbini CAF. Patient-reported outcomes of baricitinib in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and no or limited prior disease-modifying antirheumatic drug treatment. Arthritis Res Ther. 2017 Sep 18;19(1):208. doi: 10.1186/s13075-017-1410-1.
• Fleischmann R, Schiff M, van der Heijde D, Ramos-Remus C, Spindler A, Stanislav M, Zerbini CA, Gurbuz S, Dickson C, de Bono S, Schlichting D, Beattie S, Kuo WL, Rooney T, Macias W, Takeuchi T. Baricitinib, Methotrexate, or Combination in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis and No or Limited Prior Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drug Treatment. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2017 Mar;69(3):506-517. doi: 10.1002/art.39953.

Drugs

Evaluation	Drug	Modality	Dose	Route
Subject	Baricitinib	Small molecule	4 mg	Oral
Subject	Methotrexate	Small molecule	10 mg	Oral
Subject	Methotrexate	Small molecule	20 mg	Oral
Background	folic acid	Other / unclassified	—	Oral

Indications