November 2017

Herpes Zoster and Tofacitinib: Clinical Outcomes and the Risk of Concomitant Therapy

Arthritis Rheumatol 2017;69(10):1960–68

The results of this analysis of patients with herpes zoster (HZ) within the global tofacitinib (TOF) RA programme suggest that there is likely to be a greater HZ risk in patients receiving TOF and glucocorticoids compared with patients receiving TOF monotherapy.The global TOF RA development programme comprised 2 Phase 1, 9 Phase 2, 6 Phase 3 and 2 long-term extension studies. These studies included 6192 patients; data were reviewed to identify cases of HZ. Crude incidence rates of number of pati...

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Treatment Persistence and Healthcare Costs Among Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Changing Biologics in the USA

Adv Ther. 2017 Nov;34(11):2422-2435. doi: 10.1007/s12325-017-0617-5

Updated treatment guidelines recommend the use of different mechanism of action (MOA) therapies earlier in the treatment course. Clinical studies have revealed that this approach may be better than TNFi cycling, and may be more cost effective.This study of Commercial and Medicare Advantage claims data showed that patients who switched MOA had higher treatment persistence and lower healthcare costs than TNFi cyclers.After the first TNFi claim, patients either cycled to another TNFi (n=935) or swi...

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October 2017

Impact of Tocilizumab Monotherapy On Patient-Reported Outcomes in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis from Two Randomised Controlled Trials

RMD Open;3:e000496. doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2017-000496

This post hoc analysis of 2 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) AMBITION and ADACTA found that tocilizumab monotherapy results in substantial and clinically meaningful improvements in patient-reported outcomes (PROs) over 24 weeks.PROs assessed included patient global assessment (PtGA), pain, HAQ-DI, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT-F) and Short-Form-36 (SF-36) physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) and eight domain scores.Tocilizumab (TCZ) mon...

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Patient-reported Outcomes of Baricitinib in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and No or Limited Prior Disease-modifying Antirheumatic Drug Treatment

Arthritis Res Ther. 2017 Sep 18;19(1):208

RA-BEGIN was a Phase 3, double-blind randomised active comparator-controlled study to evaluate baricitinib as monotherapy or in combination with MTX in patients with active RA who were naïve to csDMARDS and bDMARDS. In this analysis of the RA-BEGIN study, baricitinib alone or with MTX when used as initial therapy resulted in significant improvements in most patient-reported outcome measures compared with MTX. At baseline, study participants had active RA, impaired physical function, moderate le...

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September 2017

Patient-reported Outcomes from a Phase 3 Study of Baricitinib versus Placebo or Adalimumab in Rheumatoid Arthritis: Secondary Analyses from the RA-BEAM Study

Ann Rheum Dis 2017;76(11):1853-1861. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-211259

This paper describes the patient-reported outcome (PRO) data collected in RA-BEAM, a Phase 3 study of baricitinib compared with both placebo and adalimumab in patients with RA and an inadequate response to MTX.PRO measures evaluated include health-related quality of life (HRQOL), physical function, disability, fatigue, sleep, mental health status, work productivity and work activity impairment. The RA-BEAM study demonstrated that patients treated with baricitinib experienced a greater improveme...

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August 2017

Treatment Persistence and Clinical Outcomes of Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Cycling or Switching to a New Mechanism of Action Therapy: Real-world Observational Study of Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients in the United States with Prior Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Therapy

Adv Ther. 2017 Aug;34(8):1936-1952. doi: 10.1007/s12325-017-0578-8

This retrospective, observational study used a real-world US clinical database to demonstrate greater effectiveness of switching to a therapy with an alternative mechanism of action (MOA) vs cycling between TNF inhibitors (TNFis) in patients in which TNFi therapy has failed.Between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2015, a total of 613 of the observed patients failed a TNFi therapy and then either cycled to another TNFi therapy (54.2%) or switched to a therapy with an alternative MOA (45.8%). The most c...

July 2017

Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis with Anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor or Tocilizumab Therapy as First Biologic in a Global Comparative observational Study

Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2017 Oct;69(10):1484-1494. doi: 10.1002/acr.23303

To date, the comparative efficacy of tocilizumab and TNFi for patients with RA has only been investigated in a single head-to-head trial and network meta-analyses. This study, ACT-iON, is the first prospective, large-scale, global, multicentre, comparative effectiveness study comparing initiation of intravenous tocilizumab with initiation of a TNFi in patients with RA as the first-line biologic treatment after inadequate response to csDMARDs. Patients were observed in a real-world, clinical pra...

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June 2017

Outcomes of Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor Cycling versus Switching to a Disease-modifying Anti-rheumatic Drug with a New Mechanism of Action Among Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

J Med Econ 2017;20:464–73

This retrospective study looked at claims-based datasets to establish whether it is preferable to switch to another TNF inhibitor (TNFi) or to a therapy with a different mechanism of action (MOA) when RA treatment failure occurs with an initial TNFi, due to inadequate response or lack of tolerability.Administrative claims data from a large US database were used to compare treatment patterns, treatment effectiveness (based on fulfillment of six criteria) and costs in in the 12 months after RA pat...

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May 2017

Estimated Medical Expenditure and Risk of Job Loss among Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients undergoing Tofacitinib Treatment: Post Hoc Analyses of Two Randomized Clinical Trials

Rheumatology doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kex087

The results of this post hoc analysis of two Phase 3 studies of tofacitinib (TOF) show that improvements in health-related quality of life related to TOF treatment are likely to translate into significant reductions in estimated medical expenditure and likelihood of current and future job loss. Data from 399 MTX inadequate responder (IR) patients from ORAL Step, and 716 TNF inhibitor (TNFi)-IR patients from ORAL Standard were included in this analysis. Patients were receiving 5 mg or 10 mg TOF B...

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April 2017

EULAR Recommendations for the Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis with Synthetic and Biological Disease-modifying Antirheumatic Drugs: 2016 Update

Ann Rheum Dis Published Online First: 06March2017. doi:10.1136/annrheumdis-2016-210715

The EULAR 2016 recommendations update, based on three systematic literature reviews (SLRs) and expert opinion, comprises four overarching principles and 12 recommendations compared with 14, respectively, in 2013. These recommendations intend to inform regarding EULAR’s most recent consensus on the management of RA, with the aim of attaining the best outcomes with current therapies.All DMARD types: csDMARDs, bDMARDs, tsDMARD and bsDMARD are addressed, and cost aspects are taken into consideration...

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