POETYK phase III trials: Pooled analyses of deucravacitinib in psoriatic arthritis

During the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2025, October 24–29, 2025, Chicago, US, Atul Deodhar presented findings from the pooled analyses of the pivotal phase III POETYK PsA-1 (NCT04908202) and PsA-2 (NCT04908189) trials, evaluating the efficacy of deucravacitinib, a first-in-class, oral tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor, vs placebo in adult patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) (N = 1,294). Patients were randomized to deucravacitinib 6 mg once daily (n = 648) or placebo (n = 646) for 16 weeks. This analysis assessed composite measures of disease activity, including minimal disease activity (MDA), Disease Activity in Psoriatic Arthritis (DAPSA), Psoriatic Arthritis Response Criteria (PsARC), and Psoriatic Arthritis Disease Activity Score (PASDAS).

Key data: At Week 16, a higher proportion of patients treated with deucravacitinib compared with placebo achieved MDA response (PsA-1, p = 0.0012; PsA-2, p = 0.0007; pooled, p < 0.0001), DAPSA low disease activity or remission (PsA-1, p = 0.0001; PsA-2, p < 0.0001; pooled, p < 0.0001), DAPSA disease remission (PsA-1, p = 0.0009; PsA-2, p = 0.0005; pooled, p < 0.0001), PsARC response (PsA-1, p < 0.0001; PsA-2, p < 0.0001; pooled, p < 0.0001), and PASDAS (PsA-1, p < 0.0001; PsA-2, p < 0.0001; pooled, p < 0.0001).

Key learning: Deucravacitinib demonstrated improvements in global disease activity compared with placebo in patients with PsA, supporting the primary results of the POETYK PsA trials.