Research is Being Conducted Looking into Making Biologics Last Longer

I was invited to a conference called the National Psoriasis Foundation Volunteer Impact Summit. The National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) brought volunteers from around the country together to collaborate, network and to be a source of impactful information for those in our psoriasis community. As many of these events as I have attended there is always a presentation on the ongoing research that is being done.

Sometimes what the presenter is saying goes way over my head. However, this presentation on research was very interesting. As soon as I heard him say that research is being done concerning the older biologics and how to make them more affective, I was hooked on every word. Researchers are trying to find a way to make biologics last longer for those of us taking them.

Older biologics

In the 20 years that I have been living with psoriasis I have been on 5 biologics. It started with Humira and then progressed to Stelara, Cosentyx, Enbrel, and Remicade. Only one of these lasted for a year and a half before I had to find another biologic to treat my psoriasis. I am not going to state which one it was because we are all different and respond differently to each medication.

At my worst, I was 80% covered. That one biologic worked and took me down to 20% covered. I was hoping it would completely clear me but sadly it did not. Then came the time it started to fail. I knew it was failing because new areas of plaque psoriasis were coming out. I had to switch. That is the problem with biologics as most of us know they tend to fail over time.

Current research

I was surprised to hear that researchers are looking into ways to make the older biologics that are on the market more effective and continue to work for long periods of time. Can you imagine what that would mean? Let’s say you find a biologic that works for you like I did. Instead of it only working for a year and a half if they accomplish this, I could have been on it long term. Maybe I would have finally found that clearance I have long for instead of having active plaque psoriasis areas to this day.

I do know that research can take significant time to find the right answers. Do I think they can find a way to make biologics more efficient? Yes, I do. They have found biologics that do work to treat psoriasis. Some people like me have had limited success using them while others have had amazing success in finding the one biologic that really works for them. Research of this area gets me excited. If they can find a way to do it, then I will strongly consider going back to the biologic that I had the most success with. It would be worth it to me to try it again especially since I am fixing to be on the road to trying yet another biologic because my treatment is once again failing. What do you think? If they could find a way to make the biologics better, would you retry one or start one if you haven’t been on a biologic?