Shaping the Future of Lupus Care: Youmna Lahoud, MD 

On Fridays, Youmna Lahoud, MD sees rheumatology patients, including people living with lupus in the clinic. In this underserved community, she is committed to providing free health care to her patients, who otherwise may not have access to care, she said.   

Youmna is also a Clinical Development Lead at Biogen, working with a team of clinicians and scientists who are researching lupus and its various immune-system pathways, with the goal of developing potential new treatment options for people with lupus.  

Learn more about Youmna and how she is helping shape the future of lupus care at Biogen. 

Tell us about your career journey. What brought you to Biogen? 

Lupus and immunology have fascinated me since medical school because of its complexity. When I began researching lupus and seeing lupus patients, I realized my opportunities to give them the right medication were very limited, and I felt a responsibilty to help advance the science behind the disease. Today, as the systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) Clinical Development lead at Biogen, I work with a team of clinicians and scientists who are researching the mechanisms of lupus and its various immune pathways, with the goal of developing potential treatment options tailored specifically to every different lupus patient.

 What are the biggest challenges and unmet needs in developing medicines for lupus?  

One of the biggest challenges is that lupus is a very heterogeneous disease. There are multiple different types of lupus; it’s not just one disease and can present differently in every person. You also have to understand how the patient feels because they may have visible symptoms like a rash or joint inflammation, but they also have invisible symptoms like fatigue that can be difficult to address.  

 Can you tell us about Biogen’s research in lupus?   

Biogen is really invested in lupus and immunology in general, working to develop potential treatment options for people living with all forms of lupus like cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) and SLE. Because lupus is not just one disease but has multiple different aspects, Biogen aims to develop potential options that could meet the needs of people living with different forms of lupus.   

 How has the understanding of lupus evolved over the years?  

Over the years, there has been a lot of research to understand lupus as a disease and its complex immune pathways. I think in the last 20 years, there has been a tremendous advancement in the science of asking the right questions and understanding the disease itself. And once you understand the disease itself, then you start to understand how to develop treatments that can target the specific areas of the immune system to stop that loop.   

What does meaningful collaboration look like in lupus research?  

We are doing this for the patients, so you have to include the patients in the development process. At Biogen, we work closely with patient advocacy groups and directly with patients to understand what truly matters to them. Through patient-reported outcomes in the trials, we can better understand the impact of the disease and how it affects their wellbeing. These symptoms are not always visible to physicians but are very important to patients’ quality of life. So, hearing directly from them helps us work toward developing care options that not only treat the visible aspects of disease but also address the invisible symptoms.   

 What do you think makes Biogen uniquely positioned to lead the next chapter of lupus care?  

Biogen has a long history of working in complex, unmet need disease areas, especially in neurological and rare diseases, and that experience positions Biogen to take on the challenge of lupus. Lupus is not an easy disease to work on—it involves complicated science, diverse manifestations, and often unclear or highly variable outcome measures. But Biogen is used to that from our neurological experience. So, applying this to lupus, I think we have the right tools and experience.  

Looking ahead to the next five to ten years, we could help advance science beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to lupus treatment. We're focused not only on better understanding the disease, but on developing potential therapies that could be tailored to individual patients—whether their lupus primarily affects the skin, joints, or other organs and their internal biology.  Every day we are one step closer to providing a new option for people living with lupus.

 What is the best part of your job?  

The people I work with. We work hand in hand to advance the research and it’s such a pleasure to be able to work with such smart and pleasant people each day. And every time we discover something new or an advancement in our work, it exponentially increases my eagerness to continue doing what I do.