Economic Outcomes of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients Switching to a Second Anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor or Vedolizumab

Michael Chiorean; Anita Afzali; Raymond K Cross; Dendy Macaulay; Jenny Griffith; Anthony Wang; Viviana Garcia-Horton

doi:10.1093/crocol/otaa031

Economic Outcomes of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients Switching to a Second Anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor or Vedolizumab

Crohns Colitis 360. 2020 Apr 29;2(2):otaa031. doi: 10.1093/crocol/otaa031. eCollection 2020 Apr.

Authors

Michael Chiorean¹, Anita Afzali², Raymond K Cross³, Dendy Macaulay⁴, Jenny Griffith⁵, Anthony Wang⁵, Viviana Garcia-Horton⁴

Affiliations

¹ Digestive Disease Institute, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Washington, USA.
² Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
³ Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
⁴ Analysis Group, New York, New York, USA.
⁵ AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Abstract

Background: Anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapies have been the mainstay of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treatment for nearly 2 decades. Therapies with novel mechanisms of action have been recently developed. This study compared healthcare resource utilization (HRU) and costs incurred while switching from an initial anti-TNF to another anti-TNF versus switching to vedolizumab.

Methods: Adults with IBD who switched from initial anti-TNF to another anti-TNF or vedolizumab were identified from Truven MarketScan claims database (January 1, 2000-September 30, 2017). Patient characteristics were assessed during the 6-month period before the initiation date of the switched-to treatment (index date). Adjusted analyses of all-cause and disease-related HRU and costs during the 6-month period after the index date (study period) were performed. Anti-TNF and vedolizumab switchers with Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) were separately compared.

Results: A total of 502 vedolizumab, 1708 adalimumab, 755 infliximab, and 703 other switchers with CD and 461, 428, 311, and 148 with UC, respectively, were identified. Patient demographics were similar across cohorts. Total all-cause costs were significantly higher for vedolizumab than adalimumab, infliximab, and certolizumab switchers in the CD cohort and adalimumab and infliximab in the UC cohort. In both cohorts, adalimumab and other switchers had fewer all-cause and IBD-related outpatient visits than vedolizumab switchers.

Conclusions: CD/UC patients who switched to vedolizumab from initial anti-TNF had higher total and treatment costs than patients who switched to another anti-TNF, except for UC patients who switched to golimumab. Prospective studies should be conducted to confirm these findings.

Keywords: anti-TNF therapy; healthcare resource use; inflammatory bowel disease; switching; vedolizumab.