Living with hidradenitis suppurativa, or HS, often means planning your days around the next flare and the painful bumps that come with it. As reported by Dermatology Times, drugmaker AbbVie says early results from a phase 3 trial of about 1,400 adults and teens with moderate-to-severe HS show that an experimental injection called lutikizumab hit its main goal, plus all eight of its key secondary goals.
Here’s what the trial found on bumps, pain and flares, how the drug works and when it could reach patients.
What patients were noticing
For the main goal, people needed at least a 75 percent drop in painful bumps and abscesses, and about 31 percent of those on lutikizumab got there by week 16, compared with 23 percent on placebo. The gap was narrower than some analysts had expected, but the drug cleared the bar the trial set.
By week 8, about 26 percent of people taking lutikizumab had at least a 3-point drop on a numeric skin pain scale, versus 15 percent on placebo, with improvement showing up as early as the first week. Over the first 16 weeks, about 18 percent of the lutikizumab group had a flare, compared with 28 percent of the placebo group, and people on the drug also reported real gains in their quality of life.
How it works
Lutikizumab blocks two inflammatory proteins, IL-1 alpha and IL-1 beta, that run high in HS lesions, and this is the first large trial to test blocking both at once.
Side effects were about the same in both groups and no new safety concerns came up, with colds, headaches, fatigue and injection-site reactions being the most common.
“Taken together, these results underscore the promising potential of this investigational treatment,” said Boston dermatologist Alexa B. Kimball, MD, MPH, a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School , in AbbVie’s announcement. Dr. Kimball is also a consultant to AbbVie and an investigator on the trial.
When it could be available
Lutikizumab isn’t approved yet, but AbbVie expects results from a longer extension of the study in 2027 and plans to submit the data to regulators in the second half of that year.
In the meantime, HS treatment has been moving quickly: in March 2026, the FDA expanded approval of Cosentyx (secukinumab) to include patients 12 and older with moderate-to-severe HS, as long as they weigh at least 30 kg (about 66 pounds). If pain and flares are hard to get ahead of, it’s worth asking your dermatologist which options make sense for you.
