FDA Approves Subcutaneous Infliximab for IBD
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved infliximab-dyyb (Zymfentra, Celltrion USA) for maintenance therapy in adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) after treatment with an intravenous (IV) infliximab product.
Infliximab-dyyb is a subcutaneous (SC) formulation of Celltrion’s infliximab biosimilar. The FDA approval provides an alternative administration option for delivering the drug, which blocks the action of tumor necrosis factor alpha.
The new formulation was approved based on phase 3 pivotal trials that evaluated the safety and efficacy of infliximab-dyyb as maintenance therapy in patients with moderately to severely active UC (LIBERTY-UC) and CD (LIBERTY-CD).
In both 54-week trials, infliximab-dyyb demonstrated superiority to placebo in the primary endpoints of clinical remission (UC and CD) and endoscopic response (CD) when given as maintenance therapy after induction therapy with IV infliximab.
The overall safety profile of infliximab-dyyb was similar to that of the placebo during the maintenance period in both studies, with no new safety signals seen.
In the randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind LIBERTY-UC study, 438 patients with moderately to severely active UC after induction therapy with IV infliximab were randomly assigned at week 10. The rate of clinical remission at week 54 was significantly greater with infliximab-dyyb (43.2%) compared with placebo (20.8%).
The most common adverse events were COVID-19, anemia, arthralgia, injection site reaction, increased alanine aminotransferase, and abdominal pain.
In the similarly designed LIBERTY-CD study, 343 patients with moderately to severely active CD after induction therapy were randomly assigned at week 10. At week 54, the clinical remission rate was greater with infliximab-dyyb (62.3%) than with placebo (32.1%).
In parallel, the endoscopic response rate at week 54 was also greater in the infliximab-dyyb arm than in the placebo arm (51.1% vs 17.9%, respectively).
The safety profile during the maintenance phase was generally comparable between the two trial arms. The most common adverse events were COVID-19, upper respiratory tract infection, headache, injection site reaction, diarrhea, increased alanine aminotransferase, increased blood creatine phosphokinase, neutropenia, hypertension, urinary tract infection, dizziness, and leukopenia.
Full prescribing information is available online.
“As someone dedicated to improving the lives of patients with IBD, I am excited to see data supporting the efficacy and safety of a new formulation offering convenience and improved access to a well-known and proven drug,” Andres Yarur, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, said in a news release.
The data “validate a convenient treatment option that could allow more patients in the US to have greater control of their disease management,” added Jean-Frederic Colombel, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City.
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