Unmet Needs in Atopic Dermatitis Management

Dr. Neal Bhatia (00:07):

Hi, I'm Dr. Neal Bhatia. I'm Chief Medical Editor of Practical Dermatology and Director of Clinical Dermatology at Therapeutics Clinical Research in San Diego, California.

(00:16):

When we think about the unmet needs in atopic dermatitis, we think, again, about the targets of therapy and the cytokines that are affected by the process. We think about, again, turning off the faucet rather than just mopping up the mess. And drugs like Methotrexate and Dapsone, for example, they're not Th2 drugs. They get substituted all the time for biologics, but they are not atopic dermatitis drugs. Drugs that have been proven in atopic dermatitis, whether they be in clinical research, in anecdotal, in case reports, these are the therapies that we need patients to understand that are very important to keeping their quality of life high and reducing their flares. For example, in the pipeline, we now have Interleukin 13, Interleukin 4, and Interleukin 31.

(00:54):

We also have different dosing strategies up to three months and six months. And even more so, we have different targets such as OX40, DSLP, some of the other neurogenic stimulators, and even more so, we look at STAT6 and some of the other targets. So I think opportunities are there for focusing on the process that makes the disease and not just thinking about cleaning up the mess with steroids and some of the other immunosuppressants that we've been stuck with.

(01:18):

Again, dermatologists have to be advocates for these patients. We have to fight hard for these drugs, and we have to make sure that patients get the right drugs in their hands. We also have to think more so about the cost of not treating these patients rather than the cost of treating them.