I am a physician-scientist who focuses my clinical and research efforts on vitiligo, and therefore I think about this disease a lot – all the time, in fact. Therefore I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts with others who are interested in vitiligo as well, particularly the patients who suffer from it and their loved ones. I want to make clear that while I am affiliated with many vitiligo organizations, my comments in this blog are my own, and do not reflect the opinions of those organizations. In addition, my research is largely focused on finding new treatments, and ultimately a cure, for vitiligo. This work is supported by a number of sources, including pharmaceutical companies, which by definition creates potential conflicts of interest. In full disclosure, here is a list of our vitiligo research supporters. Please know that, to the best of my ability, all of my comments are unbiased reflections of my understanding of vitiligo as both a physician and scientist. I do not permit advertisements on my website, and do not endorse companies or products that may advertise on other sites that may be referenced here.
Opzelura was already approved last September, 2021, for a disease called atopic dermatitis, or eczema, so you may have already seen it in the pharmacy. But most couldn’t get it covered by insurance for vitiligo because it wasn’t approved for it, and so NOW IT IS!
RSVP study is specifically for those who have treatment-resistant vitiligo that is STABLE, or not changing for at least 1 year. The process being tested is to transplant pigment cells from one part of the body without vitiligo to another part that is affected by vitiligo.
Incyte decided to run a Phase 3 Clinical Trial in over 600 patients all over the world, with the goal of supporting an application to the FDA (and the European equivalent, the EMA) to approve the treatment for patients. This means it would be available for prescription from the pharmacy, and should be covered by health insurance companies, as it would become the first and only FDA-approved treatment to reverse the effects of vitiligo! Well, we recently heard (although the data isn’t publicly available yet) that the results of the Phase 3 trial were excellent!
One of the frustrating aspects of vitiligo is its unpredictability. It’s hard to know when it will become active and when it will be stable. Individuals with vitiligo tell me they often worry about waking up and finding a new spot on their skin. They worry about the future and wonder if their vitiligo will get worse. But what if there was a crystal ball that could tell you what was in your future?
2020 was a difficult year for so many of us, with COVID-19 creating a pandemic that we have not seen for over 100 years. In the spring, many wondered how having vitiligo would influence the effect of the virus, such as getting more severe effects from the virus, or whether vitiligo might get worse during an infection with it.
I have always thought that vitiligo was beautiful, including the many patterns that form on individuals with different skin colors, shades, and hues. Vitiligo can appear on any part of the body, in many different shapes and forms. It is most frequent on the face and genitals, then the hands and feet, and then the rest of the body. One woman outlined all of her spots with a pen, which I thought was really cool and I included her picture in my blog about vitiligo and tattoos here (with her permission, of course). Since I have seen many patients over many thousands of visits in my Vitiligo Clinic, I have seen a LOT of patterns, but I still see new ones all the time. It’s one of the things that makes my job a whole lot of fun!
This is the 4th in a series of blog posts I’m calling IN HER WORDS, and today will focus on Dr. Jillian Richmond. Dr. Richmond was a postdoctoral fellow in my lab who discovered that resident memory T cells are responsible for relapse of vitiligo after stopping treatments, and that we could target IL-15 to get rid of them and treat vitiligo. She now is an Assistant Professor in our department, and she’s studying other immune-mediated skin diseases like morphea and lupus. She has her own blog that you can read here. In addition to her research program, she has a family, loves to teach students, and is an advocate for women in STEM! She’s a great model for how to be productive and high-achieving, while maintaining a strong work-life balance. Read more...
I recently had the opportunity to start a new company entirely focused on developing a new treatment for vitiligo. We named the company Villaris Therapeutics, and the name was the concept of the board members, not me. I say that because it incorporates my last name, Harris, and I want it to be clear that it wasn’t my idea, although I am honored by it. Truth is, the long list of names I came up with for the company were either already taken, or weren’t that good, to be honest. So here we are, Villaris Therapeutics, which stands for VItiligo, IL-15, and HARrIS. Now that’s out of the way, I’ll tell you a little more about the process of getting funding for the company, the team we assembled to lead it, and our mission....
Many have asked recently for an update about the treatment to target IL-15 to induce durable responses in patients with vitiligo. There was a lot of excitement around this approach when we published our paper about a year and a half ago in the summer of 2018 (read about it here), especially from me! The idea was that autoimmune memory cells form within vitiligo spots and are responsible for the return of disease at those exact same spots when treatments are stopped...
I am a physician-scientist who focuses my clinical and research efforts on vitiligo, and therefore I think about this disease a lot – all the time, in fact. Therefore I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts with others who are interested in vitiligo as well, particularly the patients who suffer from it and their loved ones. I want to make clear that while I am affiliated with many vitiligo organizations, my comments in this blog are my own, and do not reflect the opinions of those organizations. In addition, my research is largely focused on finding new treatments, and ultimately a cure, for vitiligo. This work is supported by a number of sources, including pharmaceutical companies, which by definition creates potential conflicts of interest. In full disclosure, here is a list of our vitiligo research supporters. Please know that, to the best of my ability, all of my comments are unbiased reflections of my understanding of vitiligo as both a physician and scientist. I do not permit advertisements on my website, and do not endorse companies or products that may advertise on other sites that may be referenced here.