Alan Irvine, MD, DSc: Atopic Dermatitis and the Biological Clock

Alan Irvine, MD, DSc, is a consultant dermatologist and a professor of dermatology at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

At the 2023 Revolutionizing Atopic Dermatitis (RAD) Virtual Conference on December 10, Irvine presented a session titled, "The Biological Clock is Ticking for Atopic Dermatitis."

Irvine spoke with Dermatology Times to discuss highlights and takeaways from his session, the evolving treatment landscape of atopic dermatitis, and more.

Alan Irvine, MD, DSc

Q&A

Alan Irvine, MD, DSc: I'm Alan Irvine. I'm a consultant dermatologist and a professor of dermatology at Trinity College Dublin.

Dermatology Times: What are key highlights and takeaways from your RAD Virtual Conference session, "The Biological Clock is Ticking For Atopic Dermatitis?" What do you hope attendees and clinicians will take away from your talk?

Irvine: We're going to talk about the huge growth in variety for our patients: the already approved therapies and therapies that are imminently coming through for approval. We're going to talk about what we know about their efficacy, their safety, and talk a little bit about what differentiates them one from the other within their different classes, the orals the biologics, from each other and within each class. And we're going to talk a little bit about where current practice will change in the next 1 to 2 years as a result of these advances.

Dermatology Times: What are you most excited about in the realm of atopic dermatitis treatment, management, and research?

Irvine: I'm excited about having more choice for my patients. That's always a good thing: more more options, because we don't have options in atopic derm that are one size fits all where you get exceptional results in a very high number of patients. So having options to try is always really exciting in terms of getting people to where they need to be with their condition. So I think that's the most exciting thing, and I think the next most exciting thing is the potential for that to grow again. Maybe the options will double in the next 3 to 4 years, which is really exciting, too. And then trying to figure out how best to use all of these together; I think that is a big one.

Dermatology Times: Why is a conference like RAD that focuses on updates in a specific disease state so unique?

Irvine: I think it is, because you get some some people who spend a lot of their working lives thinking about atopic term, listening to patients describe their lives with atopic term, trying to find solutions for them, involved in clinical research, involved in clinical trials, involved in preclinical work. That kind of singularity of focus is really quite special. As something that can be done online, it means that people don't have to travel, so it's a little more open and inclusive in its participation. It allows people from different time zones to join in without too much disruption to their working week. The fact that it runs on a Sunday is a kind of positive thing in that sense. I think it's a really positive initiative. Also, increasingly, industry has looked to disclose some quite significant new findings at RAD, which is really a marker, kind of an endorsement, of what they're doing, because a big stories tend to be kept back for impactful conferences. And what you're seeing now is essentially RAD is a very impactful conference up with the the broader ones like the European Academy and the American Academy that are all well-established. This is a new one where you'll see some genuinely new data that nobody's seen before, and that's often a very high standard and very novel.

Dermatology Times: What else would you like to share with your fellow colleagues in dermatology?

Irvine: People need to stay tuned and keep paying attention, because it's such a busy world out there in this space. Things are changing very rapidly, and it's good just to touch base and keep up to speed with where options and thinking is, because it's changed even since last year. I think people who are involved in that space, it's a great motivation to stay on top of everything.