Parkinson’s Disease | Treatment Algorithms | Claims Data Analysis | US | 2014
The symptomology of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is heterogeneous; individual patients experience different combinations of primary motor symptoms, complications of therapy, and/or key nonmotor comorbidities (e.g., dementia, psychosis) associated with the disease. Moreover, in each patient, the balance of the many disease- and therapy-related symptoms typically changes over time with disease progression. PD treatment is thus highly individualized as physicians settle on a drug regimen that best addresses the myriad of signs and symptoms specific to each patient at a given point in time, and make therapeutic adjustments as needed—potentially frequently. The availability of numerous and complementary therapeutic options adds to the complexity of the treatment algorithm in PD, and growing generics competition in this market further complicates treatment decisions. Using national patient-level claims data, this report explores the evolving position of current drugs in the treatment of PD. Quantitative analyses of the “Newly Diagnosed Patients” data query include share by line of therapy, progression between lines, duration of treatment on each line, and the use of concomitant treatment. For the “Recently Treated Patients” query, the report expands the understanding of PD treatment patterns by quantifying drugs’ source of business and patient flow through preceding therapies. Additional analyses explore persistency and compliance by brand.
