Novartis announced that the European Commission (EC) has approved Cosentyx (secukinumab) for use in adult patients with moderate/severe active suppurative hidradenitis (HS) and an inadequate response to conventional systemic HS therapy.

How did he collect Servimedia, Cosentyx is the first new biologic treatment for HS in nearly a decade and offers clinically relevant results for the most debilitating symptoms. The European approval is based on robust phase III data showing that Cosenthix provides rapid symptom relief from week 4, with response rates continuing to improve over 1 year. In addition, the therapy has a known safety profile, consistent with six already approved indications and 8 years of real-world clinical experience in more than 1 million patients.

“With only one currently approved therapeutic option, HS patients are in dire need of alternatives that will lessen the disabling physical symptoms of HS, lessen the emotional burden, and help to partially avoid invasive surgery when treated early,” he commented. Professor Christos C Zouboulis, President European Hydradenitis Purulent Foundation, Head of the Departments of Dermatology, Venereology, Allergology and Immunology, Städtisches Klinikum Dessau and Founding Professor of Dermatology and Venereology at the Brandenburg Medical School, Germany. “This approval offers physicians a more effective therapeutic option, and for dermatologists, a robust treatment choice that we can prescribe for this complex and complex disease.”

“Since first being approved in 2015, Cosenthix has been used to treat more than 1 million people worldwide. We are pleased to introduce Cosentyx as a much needed and robust therapeutic option that provides rapid and sustainable symptom relief in HS patients,” said Hasib Ahmad, President, Novartis Europe.

HS is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that causes painful and potentially disfiguring abscesses. About 200,000 people in Europe are currently living with moderate/severe disease. A regulatory decision from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected later this year.