Abilify Has Made Strong Gains In Patient Share Across All Lines Of Therapy Since Last Year's Analysis Of Prescribing Trends In Schizophrenia

Main Category: Schizophrenia
Article Date: 24 Jul 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the patient share of Bristol-Myers Squibb/Otsuka's Abilify has grown in the first three lines of therapy since the 2008 analysis of prescribing trends in newly diagnosed schizophrenia patients. Abilify is second to risperidone (Janssen's Risperdal, generics) in first and second lines of therapy and leads other atypicals in the third line.

"Abilify's first-line patient share grew from 4.2 percent in our 2008 analysis to 14.6 percent in the current dataset. Pfizer's ziprasidone mesylate). External link" target="_blank">Geodon also grew substantially compared with our 2008 analysis whereas both Eli Lilly's Zyprexa and AstraZeneca's Seroquel lost first-line patient share," stated Nicole Westphal, Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources. "These data suggest that Abilify and Geodon's better penetration of first-line therapy came at the expense of others in the class and we attribute Zyprexa's and Seroquel's declining use across early lines of therapy to concerns about their metabolic side effects."

The new Treatment Algorithms in Schizophrenia report also finds that surveyed psychiatrists will remain focused on an agent's metabolic or weight gain side effects when treating current and newly diagnosed patients. The majority of surveyed psychiatrists will switch patients from atypicals with unfavorable metabolic side-effect profiles to those with more favorable profiles or increasingly consider weight gain and metabolic side-effect profiles when choosing an antipsychotic in the first-line.

By combining patient-level claims data with physician survey data, this report can be used to build patient-flow models and analyze the assumptions driving these models.

Patient-flow analysis for Janssen's Invega shows that only three percent of all users took the drug as a first-line agent. However, surveyed psychiatrists expect to substantially increase their first- and second-line prescriptions for the drug. As Invega continues to experience increased uptake in early lines of therapy, surveyed psychiatrists indicate that risperidone and Zyprexa will lose the most share. These data indicate that marketers of current and emerging atypical antipsychotics will need to position themselves against Invega's growing use as an early-line agent.

About Treatment Algorithm Insight Series

Decision Resources combines in-depth primary research with the most extensive claims-based longitudinal patient-level data from IMS Lifelink: Health Plans Claims database to provide exceptional insight into physicians' prescribing trends and the factors that drive therapy product choice, from diagnosis through multiple courses of treatment, for a specific disease.

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Source: Decision Resources