• Diana Brixner, Manish Mittal, David T Rubin, Philip Mease, Harry H Liu, Matthew Davis, Arijit Ganguli, and A Mark Fendrick.
• Department of Pharmacotherapy, University of Utah College of Pharmacy, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
• Patient Prefer Adher. 2019 Jan 1; 13: 1545-1556.

PurposeNonadherence to indicated therapy reduces treatment effectiveness and may increase cost of care. HUMIRA Complete, a Patient Support Program (PSP), aims to reduce nonadherence in patients prescribed adalimumab (ADA). The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between participation in the PSP and prescription abandonment rates among ADA-treated patients.Patients And MethodsThis longitudinal study using patient-level data from AbbVie's PSP linked with medical and pharmacy claims data included patients ≥18 years with an ADA-approved indication, ≥1 pharmacy claim for ADA, and available data ≥3 months before and ≥6 months after the index date (defined as the initial ADA claim [01/2015 to 02/2017]). Abandonment was defined as reversal of initial ADA prescription with no paid claim during 3-month follow-up. Abandonment rates were compared between PSP and non-PSP cohorts using multivariable logistic regression controlling for potentially confounding baseline characteristics.ResultsIn 17,371 patients (9,851 PSP; 7,520 non-PSP), the overall abandonment rate was 10.8-16.8% across indications. The odds of ADA abandonment were 70% less for PSP vs non-PSP patients (5.6% vs 20.4%, odds ratio [OR]=0.30, [95% confidence interval (CI)=0.27-0.33] P<0.001), 38% less for patients using specialty vs retail pharmacy (OR=0.62, 95% CI=0.56-0.69, P<0.001), 20% less for those with income of $50-99K vs $0-49K (OR=0.80, 95% CI=0.69-0.92, P<0.01), and 78% greater for those with copayment of $26-100 vs $0-25 (OR=1.78, 95% CI=1.55-2.05, P<0.001).ConclusionParticipation in the PSP, higher income, and using a specialty pharmacy were associated with lower odds of abandoning ADA therapy, whereas increased copayments were associated with greater abandonment. PSPs should be considered to improve initiation of ADA therapy.© 2019 Brixner et al.

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