Baricitinib with advantages like oral administration, rapidity of action, efficacy in monotherapy and over adalimumab in one study and non-immunization found efficacious in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment. In the past decades, improvement has been seen in the outcome for rheumatoid arthritis patients, but appropriate control of disease cannot be achieved in a substantial proportion of patients. Newly available drugs having the novel mechanism of action could be an added value to the current armamentarium.
This review concentrate on the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of baricitinib. Moreover, the article summarizes and comments on the drug's efficacy and safety profile in RA patients.

Baricitinib is available for oral administration. It is a targeted synthetic JAK1 and JAK2 inhibitor. Baricitinib either as monotherapy, or is given in combination with conventional synthetic (cs) DMARDs, has revealed its efficacy with an acceptable safety profile in early active RA naive to DMARDs, and active RA with an inadequate response to csDMARDs and/or biologic (b)DMARDs.

The future status of baricitinib for the management of RA patients will depend on several factors. Additional long-term safety data will influence prescribing decisions.