Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration | Treatment Algorithms | Claims Data Analysis | US | 2015

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is characterized by abnormal growth of blood vessels under the retina, leading to optic nerve damage, visual impairment, and potentially blindness. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-targeting treatments, which inhibit angiogenesis, have proven an effective treatment for wet AMD, and these agents dominate the market. Genentech’s Avastin, although not approved for the treatment of wet AMD, is one of the most commonly used agents to treat disease given its low cost and comparable efficacy to the approved VEGF-targeting agent Genentech’s Lucentis, as well as the most-recent market entrant Regeneron’s Eylea. Despite being in the same drug class as Avastin and Lucentis, Eylea has seen strong uptake due to the perception that it can be dosed less frequently than the alternative anti-VEGF agents; it competes strongly with Avastin and Lucentis for patient share.

Using national patient-level claims data, this report analyzes physician adherence to the treatment guidelines by exploring the use of key therapies in the newly diagnosed and recently treated wet AMD patient populations. For the newly diagnosed patients, the report provides a quantitative analysis of treatment patterns and share by line of therapy, as well as progression between lines, duration of treatment on each line, and use of concomitant treatment. For recently treated patients, the report quantifies a drug’s source of business compared with its competitors’ and details which drugs precede others through an analysis of add-versus-switch patterns. Additional analyses explore persistency and compliance by brand.