Christopher G. Bunick, MD, PhD

A pair of leading subject matter experts discuss the current landscape of atopic dermatitis, including unmet needs, and the role of IL-13 inhibition in the management. 

Exploring the Role of IL-13 Inhibition in AD: Clinical Perspectives & Practical Applications

Videos

Video: Exploring the Role of IL-13 Inhibition in AD: Clinical Perspectives & Practical Applications

Expert Perspectives: Top News in Dermatology from EADV Congress 2025

2025 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress

 in Paris, France, involving over 20,000 delegates and more than 180 scientific sessions, clinicians in dermatology were afforded the opportunity to connect and learn about late-breaking data and new research into a variety of disease states.

In this set of interviews, similar to previous ones highlighting expert perspectives, 6 leaders in the field of dermatology were asked to reflect on EADV and the most significant developments this year. Among the various pieces of new data spotlighted in responses are study readouts for icotrokinra, upadacitinib, galvokimig, and amletilimab.

 The speakers included in this summary were:

Brett King, MD, PhD, associate professor of Dermatology in the Department of Dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine

Linda Stein Gold, MD, director of Dermatology Clinical Research at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan

Martina Porter, MD, assistant professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School

Stephan Weidinger, MD, PhD, professor and chair for Dermatology at the Christian-Albrechts-University

Alexandra K. Golant, MD, medical director of the Dermatology Faculty Practice and the program director of the Dermatology Residency Program at Mount Sinai

Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD, associate professor of Dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine

 I don't want to sound like everybody else or give too general a comment, but it's really astonishing that we have the AAD early in the year, and then 6 months later we have this. Literally, at each meeting, there's brand new data. You go to the late breakers, and we are seeing brand new data at the EADV across disease states...and [with] the pace of innovation, I think this is truly the golden age of dermatology. The golden age of immunology, in dermatology. We're able to do sort of spectacular things that, every time you think, 'Maybe we're done in this disease state,' all of a sudden, there's another surprise.

I had an interesting lunch today at the EADV, and I was sitting with a colleague. I haven't been able to go to all the sessions, but my colleague said there was some really important data that was presented. I say, 'Can you tell me what it was?' And he said, 'Yeah, I took a picture.' There's this new oral IL-23 drug that it sounds absolutely wonderful. It was so interesting to me, because I think icotrokinra is a drug that the dermatology community has really been waiting for. I think the excitement is palpable, so I was thrilled to see all the additional data that came out. I think this is really going to be impactful.

I've become an HS specialist, so that's what I'm following most closely. But it is very nice, I think, for me to attend some of these late breaking sessions, because I'm seeing different mechanisms of drugs in different disease states. Some of them, I actually think, will start to cross over between some of the disease states, and we might start considering using combination therapy...Sanofi, for example, has a combination TNF-alpha and OX40 that they're actually showing the data from for this meeting.

I think as we look to the future, there will be more companies designing drugs that have different targets within a same the same molecule. So it'll be really fascinating to see if by employing these in a single medication, will we be able to achieve even greater efficacy endpoints for multiple disease states.

Also at this year's EADV meeting, we saw that this huge development, this almost paradigm shift in the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases, is ongoing. Companies continue to invest and develop new treatments. We are discussing, discussing about more ambitious outcomes. So I would say, when I go back home from this meeting, I probably say to myself, the future is bright for the field I'm working in. And that's just great.

 When I look back at EADV 2025, which was an incredible meeting for inflammatory skin disease, atopic dermatitis was in that group. We saw so much late breaking data, new mechanisms extending dosing intervals for drugs in the pipeline. For me, I think one of the most interesting topics was the focus on disease modification that is supported by some of these newer mechanisms that we are studying. But the potential to fundamentally change the nature of disease, either with earlier therapeutic intervention or just different targets in this space, was super exciting to me. I can't wait to see where this goes.

Let me start with first I had the privilege to present a study looking at the upadicitnib safety in terms of MACE, VTE and malignancy, stratified by cardiovascular risk factors and the sum of the story was that regardless of dose upadacitinib, 15 or 30 milligrams, that ultimately for MACE, VTE and malignancy, the rates on upadacitinib, if you had moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, each of those was lower than the background reference population. [This] is a real world population, taken from a claims database and age and gender-matched to the upatacitnib trial data. I think that's important very safe and lower cardiovascular outcomes in patients stratified by cardiovascular risk.

Number 2, I was really excited to finally see galvokimig data. So what is galvokimig? We just talked about IL-13 biologics, and it turns out that galvokimig is a combination between IL-13 and IL-17. Where have we heard of IL-17A and F? That molecule called bimekizumab. So galvokimig combines those and what did we learn? We learned that this drug in a phase one, and again, it was an IV administration at Week 12. It had about 47% EASI-90 response, suggesting the molecular heterogeneity in atopic dermatitis is real. Targeting TH-17 cytokines is important in treating AD.

Third, I want to highlight a particularly interesting way of attacking atopic dermatitis, as well as potentially other diseases, by targeting kallikreins. There's a particular drug called TRIV-509, shown with early data to be able to target kallikreins-5 and 7 and really impact the destruction of the skin barrier that can occur in atopic dermatitis. I think this is a fascinating new approach that others have not taken.

Lastly, I wanted to address some of the data that I think shocked a lot of people, and that was the amlitelimab phase 3 data, which didn't quite at the Week 24 mark, didn't quite hit what we were expecting in terms of the efficacy. What does this mean? Well, there's still a lot to learn about the OX40 ligand pathway, but it does seem that this pathway, whether you're targeting OX40 with rocatinlimab, or you're targeting OX40 ligand with amlitelimab, so far, the data shows it takes a little while to kick in, around the six month mark.

I do think that what this suggests is that to effectively use OX40-OX40-ligand, we may need to partner with something that works in that first six months. Why not choose an IL-13 biologic, right? There seems to be a really effective mechanism, and actually, there's already certain products out there looking at a cocktail between IL-13 and an OX40-ligand targeting drug. So I'm really excited to see where this all leads.

The quotes contained in this video summary were edited for clarity.

https://eadv.org/congress/about/#:~:text=Onsite%20information-,Letter%20from%20the%20President,science%20meets%20a%20fun%20rivalry

Johnson & Johnson. Icotrokinra shows superiority to deucravacitinib in first reported head-to-head trials reinforcing promise of novel targeted oral peptide for treatment of plaque psoriasis. JNJ.com. Published September 17, 2025. Accessed September 17, 2025. 

https://www.jnj.com/media-center/press-releases/icotrokinra-shows-superiority-to-deucravacitinib-in-first-reported-head-to-head-trials-reinforcing-promise-of-novel-targeted-oral-peptide-for-treatment-of-plaque-psoriasis

UCB announces successful first-in-patient trial for galvokimig in moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis at EADV. News release. UCB. September 18, 2025. Accessed September 30, 2025. 

https://www.ucb.com/newsroom/press-releases/article/ucb-announces-successful-first-in-patient-trial-for-galvokimig-in-moderate-to-severe-atopic-dermatitis-at-eadv

Bunick C, Stein Gold L, Silverberg J, et al. Patients with Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Atopic Dermatitis: Long-Term Safety of Upadacitinib for Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events, Venous Thromboembolism, or Malignancy (Excluding Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer). Presented at the 2025 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress, Sept 17-20, 2025.

Blauvelt A, Strober B, Rahawi K, et al. Durable Maintenance of EASI-90 with Amlitelimab in Adults with Moderate-to-Severe Atopic Dermatitis: 52-Week Results From the STREAM-AD Phase 2b Trial. Presented at the 2025 European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress, Sept 17-20, 2025.

In this set of interviews, 6 leaders in the field of dermatology highlight their experiences at the 2025 EADV Congress.

Podcasts

European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) 2025 Congress

 in Paris, new data were presented highlighting that those with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis on upadacitinib for up to 6 years have low rates of venous thromboembolism (VTE), major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), and malignancy excluding non-melanoma skin cancer (exNMSC), versus others with this condition and regardless of previous cardiovascular risk status.

 were presented at EADV by Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD, associate professor of dermatology at Yale School of Medicine, who spoke in a recent interview with 

’s editorial staff about his team’s findings.

 In this interview segment, Bunick’s conversation continued, with the significance of these findings on upadacitinib being the main topic of discussion.

Significance of Cardiovascular Data on Upadacitinib for Atopic Dermatitis, with Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD

Significance of Cardiovascular Data on Upadacitinib for Atopic Dermatitis, With Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD

“When we dive deep into this data, there are kind of three big concepts that are buried in this study,” Bunick explained. “First, we have background incident rates of the [atopic dermatitis] population for MACE, VTE, and malignancy, and that is approximately 0.6 events per 100 patient years for MACE, 0.3 events per 100 patient years for VTE, and 1.9 events per 100 patient years for malignancy. That's from our background incidence, real-world cohort, comparing those rates to upadacitinib, whether it's the 15 or 30 milligram dose. What we found was, again, consistent with all prior data safety analyses and other real-world studies, is that the upadacitinib event rates for MACE, VTE, and malignancy are all lower than the background rates in this real-world cohort, baseline population.”

Bunick highlighted additional key parts of this study that he hoped to stress for clinicians learning about these findings for the first time.

“The second key part of this study was to say…we see that upadacitinib’s event rate adverse event rates for MACE, VTE, and malignancy are lower than the background population,” Bunick said. “But what if we now stratify those rates based on zero or greater than or equal to one cardiovascular risk factor? The third key point in this data is the fact that there is no dose-dependent increase in the adverse events of MACE, VTE, or malignancy…Buried within this cardiovascular stratification, again, was the safety [finding] that there was really no difference. But it also was not dose-dependent, so that was a key part of this.”

Bunick noted that clinicians require strong safety data and that patients often search for doctors who are confident in their prescription for medications such as upadacitinib.

For any additional information on late-breaking data in dermatology, view the 

Bunick has reported receiving consultant fees or serving as an investigator for AbbVie, Incyte, LEO Pharma and Pfizer.

Bunick C. Cardiovascular Risk and Upadacitinib Treatment for Atopic Dermatitis, With Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD. HCPLive. September 19, 2025. Accessed September 20, 2025. 

https://www.hcplive.com/view/cardiovascular-risk-upadacitinib-treatment-atopic-dermatitis-christopher-bunick-md-phd

This interview segment with Bunick at EADV highlights some of the significance of these recent findings on cardiovascular risk and upadacitinib use over 6 years. 

Christopher G. Bunick, MD, PhD

Articles