As AbbVie is amping up DTCs for its next-gen eczema drug Rinvoq, the Big Pharma has published a new report aimed at showing up how well systemic treatment can help these dermatology patients.
AbbVie’s three-year, 28-country MEASURE-AD study reveals that people living with atopic dermatitis (aka eczema) who are receiving systemic therapy have less clinical, psychosocial and economic burdens compared to those not receiving systemic treatment.
Systemic therapy is used in patients with severe eczema that is not responding to topical therapy, with an example being AbbVie’s blockbuster Rinvoq.
According to findings, those patients who kept on systemic therapy reported—as measured by the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) scorer—lower clinical burden and work impairment than those not on a systemic regiment.
“Results from MEASURE-AD broaden awareness of the continued burden that people living with atopic dermatitis experience every day and of the potential link between disease severity, treatment approach and overall impact on patient-reported quality of life,” said Juan Francisco Silvestre, M.D., attending dermatologist, General University Hospital of Alicante in Alicante, Spain, and investigator for the MEASURE-AD study, in a press release.
“These real-world analyses underscore the multidimensional burden of atopic dermatitis and the need for more therapeutic options for patients.”
In addition, the study showed that of the patients living with atopic dermatitis, only half of those who are eligible are actually receiving systemic treatment.
AbbVie’s Rinvoq, which has several FDA labels, is up against Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent for some major market share. Both are already investing big ad dollars in television commercials, and Rinvoq and Dupixent regularly battle for the top TV drug ad spender each month.
It seems Rinvoq made a big dent in the market its first year, totaling $1.65 billion in sales in 2021. But the eczema drug still has a ways to go to catch rival Sanofi’s Dupixent, which reported a 46% revenue increase in just the first quarter of 2022 after making nearly $5 billion last year.
Other findings from the AbbVie MEASURE-AD study show that atopic dermatitis patients who reported lower clinical burden and less work impairment also displayed in a more positive outlook on quality of life and lower disease severity scores.
Specifically looking at psychology and quality of life, patients in the study were examined for anxiety and depression.
Results showed that smaller proportions of patients receiving systemic therapy versus those receiving no systemic therapy met the clinical cutoffs for anxiety (37.9% versus 49.5%) and depression (25.8% versus 33.1%). In fact, the subgroup of patients receiving no atopic dermatitis treatment at all showed the greatest proportions of patients meeting the anxiety and depression cutoff scores.
Atopic dermatitis impacts up to 10% of all adults and 25% of children worldwide.