Reducing Steroid Burden in gMG With CD19 Targeting, with Richard Nowak, MD, MS

Inebilizumab's benefits for generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) have been validated by recent data from the phase 3 MINT trial (NCT04524273). In the trial, the therapy was shown. to reduce exacerbations and rescue therapy use in people with gMG, while successfully tapering steroids.

These findings were presented by principal investigator Richard Nowak, MD, MS, associate professor of neurology, and director of Clinical & Translational Neuromuscular Research and the Yale Myasthenia Gravis Clinic at Yale School of Medicine.at the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) 2025 meeting in The Hague in May.

The 238 participants in MINT included 2 subsets of patients with generalized MG, AChR+ (n = 95 each randomized to inebilizumab or placebo) and MuSK+ (n = 24 each randomized to inebilizumab or placebo) patients. Nowak and colleagues found that through week 26, inebilizumab-treated patients had a hazard ratio of 0.41 (95% CI, 0.24-0.70; P = .001) of exacerbations compared to the placebo-treated group. Furthermore, rescue therapy was used by 8.4% of the inebilizumab-treated patients compared with 23.9% of the placebo-treated patients (P = .005). All participants were able to achieve a mean steroid dose of around 5 mg a day.

HCPLive spoke with Nowak to learn more about inebilizumab’s unique advantages in treating people with gMG and the new data support the use of CD19 targeting in the disease. He also shared his outlook on research in the space in the coming years.

"I think that in the next 5 years, we'll certainly have more from the perspective of targeted therapies, and I think we're on our way to really transform how we go about taking care of our patients with MG, and hopefully apply a more personalized or precision medicine type approach. We're not there yet today, but I think that is where we're trending towards over the next 5 or even the next decade. Most certainly, the last 5 years has been quite transformative and really quite enthusiastic. It's good to be in the myasthenia gravis research space, and I think that we are making a tremendous difference for our patients with this condition," Nowak said.

REFERENCE

Nowak RJ, Utsugisawa K, Benatar M, et al. Myasthenia Gravis inebilizumab trial (MINT): Reduced risk of MD exacerbations, rescue therapy use, and corticosteroid burden. Presented at: MGFA 2025, The Hague, Netherlands; May 13-15.