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Digestive Disease Week | 2026 | News | Updates | iPharmaCenter

  • Badari Andukuri
  • 2 days ago
  • 4 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

AbbVie Showcases New Real-World IBD Data for Skyrizi and Rinvoq at DDW 2026

AbbVie’s latest inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) data package from Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2026 underscores the growing clinical role of Skyrizi (risankizumab) and Rinvoq (upadacitinib) in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.


Real-world results from the ASPIRE-CD study showed that adults with moderately to severely active Crohn’s disease treated with risankizumab achieved rapid and sustained relief in key symptoms, including abdominal pain, bowel urgency, and liquid or soft stools over 52 weeks.

  • Use of corticosteroids fell from 34% at baseline to 7% by one year, while over-the-counter therapy use declined from 72% to 49%, and patients with joint and skin manifestations also reported meaningful improvement

  • Quality-of-life analyses further highlighted that 77% of patients reported better life enjoyment at Week 52, with notable gains in general wellbeing, sexual health, work productivity, and daily functioning, and overall treatment satisfaction with Crohn’s therapies rose to nearly 87% (92% among those remaining on risankizumab).



Treatment persistence data from US claims suggested a relatively low switch rate for risankizumab over 24 months in Crohn’s disease, at 14%, compared with higher rates seen with ustekinumab, vedolizumab, infliximab, and adalimumab, a pattern that was consistent even in biologic‑naïve patients.

In parallel, a separate real-world analysis in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis found that patients who switched from a biologic to upadacitinib had 31% lower odds of hospitalization and 26% lower odds of emergency department visits than those who escalated the dose of their existing biologic.


Further support for Rinvoq came from Phase 3 maintenance data in difficult‑to‑treat perianal fistulizing Crohn’s disease, where patients who initially responded to upadacitinib induction and continued on 15 mg or 30 mg maintenance showed endoscopic improvement over 52 weeks, as reflected by reductions in the Simple Endoscopic Score for Crohn’s Disease (SES‑CD), even in the absence of full fistula response. Many of these patients had previously failed anti‑TNF therapy, highlighting the potential of JAK inhibition as a longer‑term strategy in complex Crohn’s disease.



Lilly’s Omvoh Shows Four-Year Disease Clearance in Ulcerative Colitis

Lilly has reported new long-term data showing that Omvoh (mirikizumab) can maintain disease clearance in ulcerative colitis for up to four years, setting a new durability benchmark for IL‑23p19 therapies.


In the LUCENT‑3 open-label extension study, researchers followed patients with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis who had already achieved disease clearance after one year of Omvoh treatment in the LUCENT‑2 maintenance trial. Of those patients, 63.5% maintained disease clearance after four years of continuous therapy, based on an exploratory analysis.



Disease clearance is defined as the simultaneous achievement of symptomatic, endoscopic and histologic remission, representing a higher bar than clinical remission alone. Even under a stricter definition that also required endoscopic normalization, 61.3% of patients who reached this target at one year were still meeting it at four years.

According to Lilly, this is the first time an interleukin‑23p19 inhibitor has shown durable disease clearance over four years in people with ulcerative colitis.


The company notes that real‑world research has linked disease clearance to lower rates of hospitalization and surgery in UC, underscoring the potential clinical relevance of achieving and sustaining this level of control.

Johnson & Johnson’s Dual Antibody JNJ‑4804 Shows Strong Phase 2b Results in Refractory IBD

Johnson & Johnson has reported encouraging mid-stage results for JNJ‑4804, an investigational “co‑antibody” that targets both IL‑23 and TNF in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

In Phase 2b DUET trials involving patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease who had failed at least two prior systemic therapies, the agent delivered higher rates of clinical and endoscopic response than golimumab and numerically outperformed guselkumab at 48 weeks.

 

Potential new option for refractory IBD

JNJ‑4804 is a fixed‑dose combination of guselkumab and golimumab in a single subcutaneous injection, designed to block complementary IL‑23 and TNF pathways and produce a synergistic anti‑inflammatory effect.

In both DUET‑CD (Crohn’s disease) and DUET‑UC (ulcerative colitis), a highly refractory subgroup with inadequate response to two or more systemic classes showed clinically meaningful gains across multiple endpoints versus golimumab, guselkumab, and placebo.

 


DUET‑CD: Crohn’s disease data

In the overall Crohn’s disease population, JNJ‑4804 achieved clinical remission in 50.8% of patients and endoscopic response in 38.1% at Week 48. These rates were higher than those seen with golimumab (25.4% remission, 19.8% endoscopic response) and numerically above outcomes with guselkumab (42.5% remission, 33.9% endoscopic response).

Among the most treatment‑resistant patients, clinical remission with JNJ‑4804 was nearly double the best comparator, and endoscopic response was more than 60% higher, underscoring its potential in patients who have exhausted existing options.

 

DUET‑UC: Ulcerative colitis data

In the ulcerative colitis study, JNJ‑4804 also delivered stronger clinical outcomes at one year. Clinical remission at Week 48 was achieved in 41.0% of JNJ‑4804‑treated patients, compared with 11.5% on golimumab and 34.0% on guselkumab, meeting superiority versus golimumab and showing numerically higher results than guselkumab.

In the highly refractory UC subgroup, the co‑antibody again produced clinically meaningful improvements in clinical and endoscopic endpoints, with remission rates almost 60% higher than the closest comparator.

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