Pradaxa Shows Additional Cost Benefits Compared to Warfarin

A poster presentation at AMCP Nexus 2017 compared Pradaxa (dabigatran; Boehringer Ingelheim) to warfarin and Xarelto (rivaroxaban; Janssen) for prevention of stroke and bleed-related hospitalization, and costs.

Adrienne M. Gilligan, PhD, Researcher at Truven Health Analytics, an IBM Company, and colleagues sought to compare stroke and bleed-related events and health care costs between Pradaxa and Xarelto, and Pradaxa and warfarin.

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“Non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) imposes significant cost on the US health care system, leading to an economic burden of over $6 billion,” Dr Gilligan and colleagues wrote in their presentation. “While studies have reported head-to-head comparisons for stroke- and bleed-related risk for Pradaxa vs other oral anti-coagulants, few studies have reported head-to-head comparisons for stroke- and bleed-related costs.”

The researchers studied 26,592 adult NVAF patients taking Pradaxa matched to Xarelto patients, and 33,046 Pradaxa  patients matched to warfarin patients. Data were pulled from MarketScan claims databases from between 2010 and 2014. The researchers compared total per-patient per-month.costs of stroke- and bleed-related inpatient and outpatient care.

Study results showed that while Pradaxa and Xarelto had similar stroke-related hospitalizations, the Pradaxa group had significantly lower bleed-related hospitalizations, with 273 Pradaxa patients hospitalized and 386 Xarelto patients hospitalized. This resulted in per-patient per-month costs of $116 for the Pradaxa group vs $172 for the Xarelto group.

Likewise, compared to warfarin, Pradaxa had similar stroke-related costs and hospitalizations, but significantly reduced bleed-related costs and hospitalizations.

—David Costill

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