Over the past century, the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has transformed completely, from the use of gold therapy in the 1930s to the advanced biologics being used today. For most of the intervening time, however, clinicians could only offer patients with RA modestly effective disease-modifying agents, according to Michael Weinblatt, MD, the John R. and Eileen K. Riedman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the R. Bruce and Joan M. Mickey Endowed Chair in Rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
In a special lecture in honor of the late Joseph Croft, MD, Dr. Weinblatt will discuss the evolution of RA treatment over the past 100 years and how the past continues to shape the future of RA therapies.
The Rheumatology Research Foundation Memorial Lecture: To Memorialize Dr. Joseph Croft — “100 Years of Treating Rheumatoid Arthritis: To Create Our Future We Must Understand Our Past” — will take place from 3–4 p.m. on Monday, October 27, in Room W375B of McCormick Place.
“In the late 1940s, corticosteroids were first isolated and used clinically to treat RA, which was a dramatic advance at the time, but one we quickly learned brought serious long-term consequences,” Dr. Weinblatt said. “Through the mid-20th century, other therapies emerged, but many patients continued to live with uncontrolled pain, joint destruction, and disability.”
The first real turning point in the treatment of RA occurred in the late 1980s, he said, with the introduction of low-dose weekly methotrexate finally giving physicians a drug they could offer RA patients that was both effective and tolerable over the long term.
“Building on that success, the last four decades have brought a revolution in RA treatment,” Dr. Weinblatt said. “Biologic therapies — most notably the anti-TNF (tumor necrosis factor) agents — were a game-changer. For the first time, we could target specific molecules driving inflammation, and the results were dramatic.”
More recently, he said that targeted oral therapies, like Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, have expanded treatment options even further.
“Today, when a patient presents with new-onset RA, we can expect 60%–90% improvement in disease activity with appropriate therapy,” Dr. Weinblatt said. “That is an extraordinary achievement compared to where we stood just 40 years ago.”
While the advances of the past several decades have been remarkable, he said that many challenges remain.
“Most of our new drugs produce good responses, but we haven’t seen a dramatic leap forward in the last decade,” Dr. Weinblatt said. “I believe the next frontier will be precision medicine — finding ways to match the right treatment to the right patient and ultimately aiming for durable remission without ongoing therapy.”
On-demand access to recorded presentations, including Memorial Lectures, will be available to registered attendees of ACR Convergence following the annual meeting through October 31, 2026.
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If you weren’t able to make it to a live session during ACR Convergence 2025 — or you want to revisit a session from the annual meeting — make plans to watch the replay. All registered participants receive on-demand access to scientific sessions after the meeting through October 31, 2026.