Sobi launches Kineret for AOSD, SJIA

The move follows publication of NHS England’s clinical commissioning policy for the treatment of AOSD, which recommend Kineret (anakinra) as a third-line treatment where the disease does not respond to corticosteroids and DMARDs, and its policy backing use of biologics for juvenile idiopathic arthritis, when patients are intolerant to or have failed to respond to methotrexate.

SJIA and AOSD are rare autoinflammatory diseases that belong to the Still’s disease continuum. AOSD has an estimated incidence of 55-110 cases each year in England, while that of SJIA is 0.1 per 10,000 children per year.

Kineret, which is administered daily via subcutaneous injection, is a biologic immunosuppressive medicine which blocks the activity of interleukin 1 (IL-1), a chemical messenger linked with typical symptoms such as arthritis in multiple joints, spiking fever, skin rash, hepatosplenomegaly, and serositis.

"No therapy is consistently effective in all cases, so having additional treatments that can be given in a combination with other disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs or as a monotherapy will help to address this unmet need," said Dr Sinisa Savic, consultant in Clinical Immunology and Allergy at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds.

The drug is already available in the UK for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Cryopyrin-Associated Periodic Syndromes (CAPS).

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