VYNE Therapeutics placebo power

Everybody knows the 2025 VYNE therapeutics vitiligo trial was not exactly a success. Yes it did not meet both its primary and secondary endpoints in terms of pigmentation. Yes it also had a high drop out rate with patients and yes some people even reported pain as a side effect on the skin. Despite all of this the story showed us some powerful and promising results when it comes to the power of placebo and why for vitiligo there are many reasons to be hopeful and open minded.

During the trial a group of people were given a gel with the active drug(Repibresib) and another group were given just the gel with no drug. The curious thing is that the group using no drug showed an unusually high rate of repigmentation which Is extremely rare with vitiligo.

Obviously for the creators of the drug this was terrible as it put the effectiveness of the drug as a commercially and medically viable product in doubt and was essentially the core reason for discontinuation but for a person with vitiligo this is not negative news at all.

The fact that a gel with no active ingredients was able to show positive results highlights the fact that the mental side of vitiligo is key. How many people do not investigate their white marks because they have internalised the belief that no change is possible?

It is with repeated and regular exposure to every angle of the vitiligo puzzle that people start to see just how wide and unexplored the vitiligo world is. This placebo trial is just a small example of many cases all around the world of people seeing drastic improvements with or without drugs.