ACT Brief: China’s Startup Timelines, AI-Drafted Clinical Study Reports, and Bimzelx Psoriatic Arthritis Data

This is the Applied Clinical Trials Brief—your fast track to the latest insights shaping clinical operations and drug development.

• In part three of his interview, James Cheong, senior vice president of Asia Pacific at Precision for Medicine, details how NMPA reforms, parallel reviews, and expanded reviewer capacity brought China’s startup timelines in line with the US and Europe. He also explains how those timelines could be shortened further.
• In a new contributed article, Jason Lu, PhD, an independent clinical-development professional, argues that AI can draft a clinical study report in minutes, but the report only reflects evidence that has already converged. Faster drafting therefore moves the bottleneck to upstream reconciliation, database-lock readiness, and human accountability. He notes that a recent study’s 18.2-minute draft generation time measures writing speed, not how quickly a trial finishes.
• UCB reported 24-week results from its Phase IIIb BE BOLD trial, showing that Bimzelx kept numerically greater joint responses than Skyrizi in adults with active psoriatic arthritis. At week 24, 54.9% of Bimzelx patients achieved the joint response measure, compared with 43.8% on Skyrizi, a result the company treats as exploratory. The trial met its primary goal at week 16, and candida infections were more common with Bimzelx, at 2.9% versus 0.7%.

That’s all for today’s ACT Brief. Join us tomorrow for more updates shaping clinical operations and drug development. Thanks for listening.