PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The purpose of this study is to give an overview of the new 
treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in 
psoriatic arthritis (PsA).
RECENT FINDINGS: FDA has approved three new drugs for PsA: Certolizumab-pegol: a 
PEGylated Fc-free tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi); ustekinumab: an anti 
interleukin (IL)-12 and IL-23 mAb; and apremilast and oral phosphodiesterase 4 
inhibitor. On well designed and extensive developing programmes, all three drugs 
proved to be effective for the treatment of most PsA manifestations, including 
peripheral arthritis, skin involvement, enthesitis, dactylitis, quality of life 
and radiographic progression in patients failing traditional disease modifying 
drugs (DMARDs) and TNFi. Safety profile of all three drugs seems to be 
reassuring until now, although long-term data are still not available. Although 
Certolizumab-pegol is likely to be placed among the other TNFi, ustekinumab and 
apremilast, due to lower efficacy on arthritis, are being more frequently used 
as second-line therapy after TNFi failure, especially among rheumatologists.
SUMMARY: There are new therapeutic options approved for the treatment of PsA. 
For the first time, well proved effective therapies with a different mechanism 
of action than the inhibition of TNF alpha are available for the treatment of 
this progressive disease.