Emerging Therapies for Ulcerative Colitis: Updates from Recent Clinical Trials

Abstract

Turki AlAmeel,1 Abdulelah AlMutairdi,2,3 Badr Al-Bawardy2– 4 1Department of Medicine, King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam, Saudi Arabia; 2Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 3College of Medicine, Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; 4Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Digestive Diseases, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USACorrespondence: Badr Al-Bawardy, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, P. O. Box 3354, Riyadh, 11121, Saudi Arabia, Email [email protected]: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic and progressive inflammatory disorder that affects the colon. The advent of advanced therapies such as biologic agents and small molecules has revolutionized the management of UC. Despite the expanding therapeutic armamentarium of advanced therapies to treat UC, the overall net remission rates and durability of currently available agents are relatively low. This highlights the need for further drug development and more innovative clinical trial design. There are currently multiple emerging agents in the pipeline for the management of UC. This includes agents with alternative routes of administration such as oral or subcutaneous tumor necrosis factor inhibitors or novel mechanisms of action such as toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist cobitolimod and phosphodiesterase 4 inhibitor apremilast. In this review, we will highlight novel and emerging advanced therapies currently in the pipeline for the management of UC.Keywords: inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, small molecules, biologics, novel therapy

Keywords

• inflammatory bowel disease
• ulcerative colitis
• small molecules
• biologics
• novel therapy