Rheumatology Patients Report High Levels of Satisfaction With Adalimumab Biosimilar

Patients who are treated with ABP 501, a biosimilar to adalimumab, for rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondyloarthritis, or psoriatic arthritis are reporting high levels of satisfaction.

A team, led by Ran Jin, Amgen, evaluated satisfaction of patients currently treated with ABP 501 and assessed the reasons for switching from adalimumab in the real-world setting for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and indications approved on the basis of extrapolation.

The data was presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Convergence 2022 in Philadelphia.

In the study, the investigators collected data from the RA, AS, and PsA 2021 Adelphi Disease Specific Programmes (DSP), a point-in-time survey of physicians and their consulting patients conducted in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. The survey was completed by rheumatologists and dermatologists with detailed patient medical record data.

Patients also completed questionnaires regarding satisfaction with current treatment, Work Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) questionnaire and the Euro-QoL 5-dimension 5-level quality of life (EQ5D-5L) survey.

The patient population included 413 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, 194 patients with ankylosing spondyloarthritis, and 418 patients with psoriatic arthritis. The majority of patients were initiators, while patient demographic characteristics were slightly different between the initiators and switchers within the different disease cohorts.

Recent research has shown biosimilarity between ABP 501 and adalimumab in efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity in adalimumab-naïve adult patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

The team conducted descriptive analyses for patients who were adalimumab-naïve users of ABP 501 as a first advanced therapy and patients who switched from the reference product to ABP 501 as the current treatment.

Each patient was at least 18 years and initiated ABP 501 after it became available in October 2018.

About 33% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, more than 97% of the ankylosing spondyloarthritis cohort, and more than 82% of the psoriatic arthritis group were receiving ABP 501 as a monotherapy.

For initiators, the median duration of treatment was similar across the 3 indications (RA: 12.3 months, AS: 10.7 months, PsA: 10.4 months). However, much more initiators had mild disease at the beginning of reporting than at therapy initiation (RA, 77.1% vs. 8.6%; AS, 63.2% vs. 7.1%; PsA, 67.8% vs. 8.3%).

The time on the reference product before switching to ABP 501 was similar between the 3 indications (RA, 77.1% vs. 8.6%; AS, 63.2% vs. 7.1%; PsA, 67.8% vs. 8.3%).

In the switcher cohort, there were more patients reporting mild disease at the time of reporting than at ABP 501 initiation (RA, 84.1% vs. 52.4%; AS, 75.0% vs. 32.5%; PsA, 81.5% vs. 33.3%). After analyzing patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) EQ5D-5L and WPAI, the investigators found results were mostly similar at the time of reporting, regardless of indication and prior exposure to the reference product.

Overall, the satisfaction of both physicians and patients for the treatment was more than 86% across all groups.

Finally, switches were mostly because of financial decisions or formulary driven switch.

“Patient and physician satisfaction with ABP 501 in the real world was high for both Initiators and Switchers across all 3 indications,” the authors wrote. “The most frequently reported reasons for switch from RP to ABP 501 were financial and formulary driven reasons.”

The study, “Real-World Utilization of Adalimumab Biosimilar (ABP 501) in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Ankylosing Spondylitis and Psoriatic Arthritis in Europe,” was published online by ACR.