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Dermbits

How does the efficacy of baricitinib compare to topical and corticosteroid treatments?

Alopecia

You. So we're fortunate to have a therapy that's FDA approved. It's the first agent that's FDA approved for alopecia areata. It's oral baracitinib, which is a Janus kinase inhibitor, and it was proven to be very effective in adults with severe alopecia areata that had at least 50% scalp involvement with the disease s that was studied typically as a monotherapy. If the patient had been on something that they may have been using, possibly for alopecia areata that was an oral therapy like finasteride, they had to be stable for a long period of time. But typically these patients were not utilizing any type of topical treatment, adjunctive treatment, corticosteroid treatment. So from those trials, we really know what the benefit of baracitinib is, and quite frankly, I don't really see that the topical agents add that much compared to what I know the baracitinib is going to be able to do. We don't have any head to head data, but we don't really appreciate that topical agents, including corticosteroids, have very effective for alopecia areata, especially of this severity. So I would say it's really an unfair fight to be putting topical therapy versus oral baracetinib.