Vivek Ra­maswamy’s Der­ma­vant team looks to take on Am­gen’s $13.4B pso­ri­a­sis con­tender Ote­zla with a promis­ing PhI­II read­out for a top­i­cal ri­val

At first glance, you might not be too im­pressed with the da­ta from Der­ma­vant’s Phase II­Is for their pso­ri­a­sis con­tender tap­inarof. The re­sults pale in com­par­i­son to the bi­o­log­ics that have been trans­form­ing the field.

But Der­ma­vant, a brain­child of biotech en­tre­pre­neur Vivek Ra­maswamy, isn’t about to go toe-to-toe with the heavy­weights. Their cream treat­ment has a dis­tinct com­mer­cial plan in place that leaves the most se­vere cas­es to the bi­o­log­ics, while po­si­tion­ing it­self in the front of the mar­ket — and quite pos­si­bly in com­bi­na­tion with some of those block­busters that have been steal­ing all the head­lines.

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