With more than 170 sessions across four days, the 35th EADV Congress offered no shortage of new data. But the most valuable takeaways for brand and commercial teams were not found in any single abstract. They emerged from patterns across the programme: the same themes recurring in late-breaking pipeline data, expert updates and debate sessions alike.

We have distilled three of these patterns into questions. None has a settled answer yet, and that is precisely why they matter. The teams that address them early will help shape how the market frames them; those that wait could find themselves responding to a narrative set by someone else.

1. Is patient convenience about to become the next battleground in immunodermatology?

Across the atopic dermatitis and psoriasis sessions, a clear thread ran through the field’s debates and emerging pipeline: competing not only on how well a treatment works, but on how often a patient has to think about it and how well it fits into their daily lives. Data were presented for a regulatory T-cell-inducing biologic exploring monthly and quarterly maintenance dosing, alongside a novel trispecific antibody, a pH-sensitive IL-4Rα × TSLP bispecific engineered specifically for extended exposure, and a first-in-class oral RAC2 modulator. Long-term extension data for established mechanisms, and a dedicated focus on the evidence base for long-term oral JAK inhibitor use, added further weight to the durability and convenience conversation.

Psoriasis hasn’t seen the same wave of new drugs built explicitly around extended dosing intervals, but a new type or convenience is entering the market in the form of oral therapies. As efficacy across mechanisms converges, posology is likely to become one of the most visible points of differentiation, and potentially one of the most persuasive for patients and payers, given the access and pricing implications that follow from fewer required administrations, reduced monitoring burden, and simplified reimbursement pathways. Both established brands and newcomers will need to assess the value of a reduced dosing interval relative to speed of onset, depth of response and long-term safety, hypothesize how competitors will respond, and craft or update messaging accordingly.

“When efficacy converges, convenience becomes the claim. The question is whether your brand defines that conversation or responds to it.”

James Robins, Managing Consultant, Lumanity

2. Is remission replacing response as the yardstick for success?

Three separate updates – psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa – each carved out dedicated time for the same unresolved question: what does disease modification actually look like, and who gets to define it? It’s the question the prior duration debate ultimately depends on: you can’t agree on how long treatment should continue until you agree on what “no longer needed” actually means.

The psoriasis update dedicated a talk to disease modification – i.e. whether treatment changes the underlying course of disease. The adult atopic dermatitis session paired upcoming therapies with the same disease modification question; and the hidradenitis suppurativa update went further, dedicating a talk explicitly to defining disease progression and remission as a distinct, measurable clinical state. These are not the same claim. Remission is a clinical state, which may or may not hold once treatment is withdrawn or reduced. Whereas disease modification aims to show that the biology itself has changed, typically requiring durability-off-drug or biomarker evidence rather than response rates alone.

Research on the mechanisms of chronicity and resolution in psoriasis, registry data on the impact of minimal disease activity on patient-reported outcomes, and a dedicated session on core outcome sets in dermatology all point the same way: the debate has evolved beyond a vague notion of “lasting control” and now seeks to define remission as a measurable clinical endpoint, and identify which outcomes clinicians, patients and regulators should agree belong in a core outcome set.

When the yardstick changes, evidence plans built around short-term response rates can quickly look incomplete. Brands that help define what remission means in their indication, and which outcomes matter most to clinicians and patients, will be better placed than those measured against a definition set by others.

3. Are GLP-1 receptor agonists about to reshape the dermatology market?

This question is different in kind from the first two. The dosing-interval and remission-definition questions are about evidence standards – whether a brand’s data supports the claim it’s already making. This last question we observed is about population: whether the patient in front of the dermatologist is changing faster than existing segmentation assumes, for reasons entirely outside any single brand’s control. In that sense, it’s the broadest of the three questions: it doesn’t ask what a brand can prove, but who a brand is even designing for.

GLP-1 receptor agonists appeared across strikingly different parts of the programme. An aesthetic dermatology session addressed rejuvenation in the era of GLP-1 agonists, a regional society session covered GLP-1 use in dermatology, and two multinational case-control studies explored associations between GLP-1 receptor agonists and scalp involvement and nail disorders. Meanwhile, the psoriasis update opened with obesity and psoriasis, and sessions on longevity medicine and the cutaneous manifestations of internal disease brought insulin resistance, weight management and diabetes directly into the dermatology conversation.

As more patients with inflammatory skin disease are also treated for weight or metabolic conditions, their profile, comorbidity burden and care pathway may change, with implications for positioning, segmentation and cross-specialty engagement. Brands whose story leans on comorbidity benefits or metabolic risk may need to revisit it, while emerging dermatological effects create new questions for medical affairs.

From takeaway to action

Congress takeaways are only valuable if they change what happens next. Two of these questions are about evidence: can your data defend the claim you’re already making, or the claim the market will soon expect? The third is about population: who is the patient you’re actually planning for, and is that changing faster than your segmentation assumes? Brand teams that treat all three as a single “do more trials” problem will miss the point. The dosing and remission questions aren’t a call for more data, they’re a call for more targeted data: evidence plans designed around the specific claim you’ll need to defend, rather than broader response-rate studies that may not hold up once the goalposts move. The GLP-1 question calls for something different again better situational awareness, through real-world data and cross-specialty insight into a population that’s shifting underneath existing assumptions, not a claim that needs defending.

Projects worth considering, by question:

Dosing interval / convenience

  • Trade-off research quantifying the value of dosing interval
  • Competitive war-gaming for a scenario where extended dosing drives treatment choice
  • A messaging review to confirm the brand is defended on the dimensions that will matter in 2028, not just today

Remission as the new yardstick

  • Expert engagement to understand, and help shape, how remission and disease-modification criteria are evolving in your indication
  • An evidence gap assessment to test whether the current data package can support a remission or disease-modification claim
  • Integrated evidence generation planning that builds long-term and real-world data in early

GLP-1 and the shifting patient population

  • A landscape assessment of GLP-1 impact across dermatology indications
  • A refresh of patient segmentation and journey maps
  • Research into how dermatologists and other specialists are co-managing these patients today

Each of these is work that is best started now, while there is still time to influence how the market frames the answer. Lumanity has experience in helping brand teams in each of the areas above, so if any of them resonate with your 2027 planning, we would welcome the conversation.