Study touts arthritis drug

Abbott Laboratories' Humira is effective as a first treatment for patients with aggressive rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study in the January edition of the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Almost half of patients taking Humira plus the generic rheumatoid arthritis drug methotrexate entered remission, about twice the rate of those given just one of the two drugs in a two-year study involving 799 patients. The combination also slowed worsening of the disease, which can lead to moderate disability within two years of diagnosis, the Abbott-funded study found.

"Early intervention that prevents irreversible damage would appear to offer the best opportunities" for good results in patients diagnosed with early, aggressive cases of rheumatoid arthritis, wrote Ferdinand C. Breedveld, a professor of rheumatology at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and his colleagues in the report.

Publication of the findings, which were used to win expanded approval of the drug in October, may help the Abbott Park, Illinois-based company market Humira for patients with new diagnoses. About 2 million Americans have rheumatoid arthritis, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Humira's 2006 sales may rise 36 percent to $1.85 billion from this year's expected $1.36 billion, wrote Michael Weinstein, an analyst at J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., in a Dec. 15 note to clients. In 2004, Humira revenue totaled $852 million.

Lack of treatment for the joint-destroying disease can leave people unable to walk or perform simple tasks like buttoning their shirts, doctors say. It is more disabling than the more common osteoarthritis form of the disease.

Shares of Abbott fell 56 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $39.79 at 3:30 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has lost 14 percent this year.

Existing treatments for rheumatoid arthritis include Enbrel, sold by Amgen Inc. and Wyeth, Remicade from Johnson & Johnson, and Orencia, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s new drug approved by U.S. regulators last week.

Humira injections cost about $15,000 a year, about the same as Enbrel, according to the online pharmacy Drugstore.com. The site doesn't list Remicade, which is infused in doctors' offices, or the just-approved Orencia.