Comparative Economic Outcomes in Patients with Focal Seizure Initiating First-Line Eslicarbazepine Acetate Monotherapy versus Generic Antiseizure Drugs.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the association between initiating first-line (1L) monotherapy with eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) vs a generic antiseizure drug (ASD) and healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and charges in adults with treated focal seizures (FS).

METHODS

This was a retrospective analysis of Symphony Health's Integrated Dataverse open-source claims data. Two cohorts were identified as having initiated 1L monotherapy with ESL or literature-defined generic ASDs. Linear regression models with person fixed effects and inverse probability treatment weights assessed the relative additional changes in HCRU and charges among patients who received ESL compared to generic ASD.

RESULTS

A total of 250 and 43,220 patients initiated ESL (48.3 years; 57.2% female) or a generic ASD (54.5 years; 58.1% female), respectively. Compared to patients initiating a generic ASD, patients treated with ESL had additional reductions of 11.8 percentage points in the likelihood of any all-cause outpatient visits (<0.001), 7.4 percentage points in the likelihood of any emergency department (ED) visits (=0.013), and 22.7 percentage points in the likelihood of any FS-related outpatient visits (<0.001). Patients initiating ESL had greater reductions in mean charges for all-cause medical ($2620; =0.002), outpatient ($1995; =0.005), and non-FS-related medical ($2708; <0.001) services. Patients initiating ESL had greater relative increases in mean total prescription ($1368; <0.001) and ASD-related prescription ($1636; <0.001) charges, but greater relative reductions in non-ASD prescription ($269; =0.032) charges. The increases in prescription charges were of a lower magnitude than the decreases in medical charges.

CONCLUSION

Initiation of ESL as 1L monotherapy was associated with statistically significantly greater reductions in any use of several all-cause and FS-related services, number of visits, and charges compared to initiation of a generic ASD as 1L monotherapy in patients with FS. Initiation of a generic ASD as 1L monotherapy was associated with significantly smaller increases in total prescription charges and ASD-related prescription charges.