Ar­cutis pulls in a win for its top­i­cal ver­sion of an old As­traZeneca drug in plaque pso­ri­a­sis

Make way, Der­ma­vant. Two months af­ter the com­pa­ny vowed to up­end the plaque pso­ri­a­sis mar­ket with its new­ly ap­proved van­ish­ing cream, there’s an­oth­er top­i­cal to con­tend with.

Ar­cutis Bio­ther­a­peu­tics se­cured a win on Fri­day for its phos­pho­di­esterase-4 (PDE4) in­hibitor rof­lu­mi­last, now mar­ket­ed as Zo­ryve in plaque pso­ri­a­sis for chil­dren and adults ages 12 and up.

You may rec­og­nize rof­lu­mi­last as the ac­tive in­gre­di­ent in As­traZeneca’s COPD drug Dalire­sp. PDE4s have long been used to treat skin and oth­er in­flam­ma­to­ry con­di­tions, with Ote­zla be­ing one of the most no­table. How­ev­er, ear­li­er gen­er­a­tions car­ry bur­den­some side ef­fects, most com­mon­ly nau­sea, di­ar­rhea and vom­it­ing that “re­al­ly lim­it­ed the use­ful­ness of PDE4s,” CEO Frank Watan­abe said.

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