Study Finds Injectable versus Infusion Biologics Less Costly
San Diego—Autoimmune disorder patients taking injectable biologics had lower average monthly drug costs compared to patients taking infusion biologics, according to the results of a new study. The findings from the study, titled Comparison of Monthly Treatment Costs for Patients Treated with Infusion vs Injectable Biologics, were presented at the AMCP meeting during a poster session.
Biologic medications are giving patients new treatment options, but these new drugs also often carry a high price tag. In this retrospective study, researchers used claims data to determine whether the administration route of these medications signifi- cantly impacted monthly drug costs for autoimmune disorder patients. To achieve this objective, research- ers used data from the Truven Health MarketScan® Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to identify patients ≥18 years of age who were being treated with a biologic medication and had at least 1 diagnosis for the following conditions: rheuma- toid arthritis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn’s disease.
Patients in the study were assigned to 1 of 2 cohorts based on the administration route of their index biologic drug. Those in the infusion biologic group (n=7197) were treated with infliximab, rituximab, natalizumab, or tocilizumab, while those in the injectable group (n=25,714) were taking adalimumab, etanercept, certolizumab, golimumab, ustekinumab, or anakinra.
The date of the first claim for an infused or injected biologic was considered the patient’s index date and the study period continued for 12 months after the index date. Researchers determined total costs by including the cost of both the drug itself and the administration cost for insurer and patient. They identified a primary outcome as the monthly average treatment cost.
After analyzing the data, they found that those patients assigned to the infusion biologic group had significantly higher monthly drug costs compared to those taking injectable biologics. According to the results, the average 30-day total drug cost for the infusion group was $3571 compared to $2533 for the injection group (P<.0001). While administration costs were included in the total drug cost figures, researchers reported that the majority of the cost was due to the drug itself, which accounted for $3340 of the infusion cost and $2532 of the injection cost (P<.0001).
Even after researchers conducted an adjusted analysis they found that the infusion group was still associated with a higher monthly cost. Based on the adjusted figures, the infusion group’s average monthly drug cost was $1058 more than the injectable group (P<.0001). One other difference between the 2 groups was the amount of cost sharing between the payer and patient. The patients in the injectable group had significantly more patients who had an aspect of cost sharing than those in the infusion group.
The authors acknowledged, however, that there were several limitations to their study. For instance, the claims data did not include a measure of medication supply so researchers assigned the expected days of supply by using the recommendations on the label for the length of time recommended between injections or infusions. The study also only included patients who were covered by employer-sponsored commercial plans.—Jill Sederstrom
This study was supported by AbbVie, Inc.
