Adherence to biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is often suboptimal in routine clinical practice. Low or nonadherence can reduce the effectiveness of bDMARD therapies.
To evaluate filling of newly prescribed initial bDMARDs for the treatment of RA and evaluate potential for characterizing treatment decisions and patient outcomes.
In this retrospective cohort analysis, patients aged ≥ 18 years with an RA diagnosis (ICD-9-CM code 714.xx) were selected from a de-identified database of clinical information from the Electronic Health Record (EHR; Humedica) database linked to health care claims (Optum) from commercial and Medicare Advantage health plans (2007-2013). The first biologic prescription date in EHR was the index date. Patients were categorized as filling the prescription within 30 days (early fillers), 31-180 days (late fillers), or not at all within 180 days (nonfillers) of index date.
Of 373 patients meeting inclusion criteria, 170 (45.6%), 59 (15.8%), and 144 (38.6%) were categorized as early fillers, late fillers, and nonfillers, respectively. Most prescriptions were written or ordered for tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (88.7%). Compared with late and nonfillers, early fillers were younger and more likely to be female, with higher pain scores (among those reporting pain scores) and RA severity scores pre-index, and filled more prescriptions for any reason pre-index. More nonfillers (66.0%) were Medicare patients than early (17.7%) and late (35.6%) fillers. During days 0-30 post-index, conventional synthetic DMARD use was greatest for early fillers (45.9%) and lowest among nonfillers (24.3%); however, during days 31-180 post-index, the proportion was highest for late fillers (61.0%) and lowest for nonfillers (35.4%). Of early fillers, 12.9% did not fill/receive a bDMARD after 30 days. Only 23 patients had pre/post-index pain scores, and 47 patients had a rationale for stopping or not filling a bDMARD. In patients with pharmacy and medical coverage for 180 days post-index, early fillers had greater RA-related pharmacy and medical resource use and costs than late and nonfillers combined.
These findings confirm a high rate of primary nonadherence to bDMARDs among patients with RA.
This study was funded by Pfizer. Harnett, Wiederkehr, Gerber, Gruben, Bourret, and Koenig are employees and shareholders of Pfizer. Study concept and design were contributed by Harnett, Bourret, and Wiederkehr, with assistance from Gerber and Gruben. Gruben took the lead in data collection, along with Harnett and Wiederkehr, with data interpretation performed by Gerber, Koenig, Harnett, and Gruben, with assistance from Bourret. The manuscript was primarily written by Harnett and Gruben, along with Wiederkehr, Gerber, Bourret, and Koenig, and was revised by all the authors.

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