Trends of Treatment Development in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Promise, Progress, and Challenges

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic, abnormal inflammatory immune response. It is characterized by the involvement of the synovium and multiple organs and the destruction of joints and articular cartilage. In the past 30 years, several promising novel compounds and antibodies have been developed for the treatment of RA. The introduction of new drugs and precision medicine for all forms of RA raises several issues related to access to novel treatments by patients, optical regimen selection, cost-effectiveness, prognosis monitoring and outcome surveillance, particularly with regard to the development of low drug response rates, drug resistance and adverse side effects. Tremendous attention has been given to the identification of optimized drug combinations for the treatment of RA, particularly in early high-risk vulnerable and early individuals. Addressing these issues requires novel therapeutic approaches with new mechanisms and the establishment of accurate guidelines for drug selection, drug recombination, and non-chemical therapeutic efforts. In this study, we reviewed the most exciting recently established or ongoing novel drugs and approaches according to the clinical trial database maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine and discussed the trends in RA drug development and challenges in the treatment, providing a reference significant for the accurate treatment of RA and the research direction in the future.