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June 5, 2014 7:00 am
Pharmaceutical companies are not motivated to provide a definitive answer on the title question. A recent study (Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2014; 12: 811-17) states that “head-to-head clinical trials of anti-TNF therapies are unlikely to ever be undertaken because of the extreme cost to conduct such studies and the financial risk that such trials would entail for the manufacturers.” The two most popular biologics, infliximab (IFX) and adalimumab (ADA), for inflammatory bowel disease have been incredibly successful (Multi-billion dollar biologics | gutsandgrowth).
The current study is “one of the first to directly compare the effectiveness” of IFX and ADA for Crohn’s disease. The authors retrospectively examined a U.S. Medicare data cohort from 2006-2010 and identified new users with 1459 IFX and 871 ADA patients. While 94% of Medicare enrollees are >65 years, this study had a range of patient ages due to those who received Medicare due to disability. In fact, in the ADA group, ~60% were between 30-60 years and in the IFX group, ~44% were in this age group.
Key result:
While persistence is an imperfect measure of effectiveness, the fact that surgeries and hospitalizations were similar indicates that the medications are likely to have similar clinical effectiveness, at least in this population. Data on mucosal healing, more direct measures of effectiveness, and longer followup certainly would strengthen this conclusion.
Posted by gutsandgrowth
Categories: Pediatric Gastroenterology Intestinal Disorder
Tags: adalimumab, Crohn's disease, humira, infliximab, remicade
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