“If you’re in a surgery-dominated area, the surgeons were very influenced by a Cleveland Clinic paper that said patients who received infliximab had more complications after surgery. There were a lot of caveats to that paper, but colorectal surgeons don’t want you to use a TNF inhibitor if they feel the patient is going to surgery,” she said.
In addition to mongersen, other novel agents targeting new pathways in IBD include the oral Janus-associated kinase inhibitor tofacitinib (Xeljanz), under study for both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease; ozanimod, an oral sphingosine 1–phosphate 1 and 5 receptor modulator in clinical trials for ulcerative colitis; and the humanized monoclonal antibody etrolizumab, a selective anti-integrin agent.
Dr. Mahadevan reported serving as a consultant to and/or research grant recipient from more than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies.
*Changes were made to this story on March 24, 2016.