Conditions: Rheumatoid Arthritis
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 738
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this clinical research study is to determine whether abatacept treatment on a background of Disease Modifying Antirheumatic Drugs (DMARDs) will relieve the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in participants who are currently receiving anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy for at least 3 months and are not responding or have taken anti-TNF therapy in the last 3 months and did not respond. The safety of treatment with abatacept will also be evaluated. This study also has a 4.5-year long-term extension beginning 6 months after the start of the study.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: Short Term Portion of Study arm 2: Short Term Portion of Study arm 3: Long Term Portion of Study:

All participants receive Active Drug

Interventions: intervention 1: Abatacept intervention 2: Placebo intervention 3: Abatacept
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Vials, intravenous (IV), \~10mg/kg abatacept, One every 2 weeks for first month then every 4 weeks thereafter, 6 months. intervention 2: Vials, IV, 0mg, One every 2 weeks for first month then every 4 weeks thereafter, 6 months. intervention 3: Vials, IV, \~10mg/kg abatacept, every 4 weeks, 5.5 years

Protocol document: