medwireNews: The adalimumab biosimilars GP2107 and SB5 may differ in their rates of discontinuation and remission in routine clinical practice, researchers report.
These findings are based on an analysis of 1318 patients with axial spondyloarthritis (40%), rheumatoid arthritis (35%), or psoriatic arthritis (24%) from the Danish DANBIO registry who were previously treated with originator adalimumab and switched to a biosimilar product following a nationwide economic directive in November 2018.
Hafsah Nabi (Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark) and colleagues report in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases that 89.5% of switchers remained on their adalimumab biosimilar at the 1-year follow-up. The 623 patients who switched to GP2017 had a significant 40% lower likelihood of treatment withdrawal than the 695 patients who switched to SB5 after adjustment for factors including age, sex, previous treatment, and comorbidities.
The overall proportion of patients in remission (DAS28 <2.6 or ASDAS <1.3) decreased from 61% at the time of switching to 56% at the 6-month follow-up. In the adjusted analysis, patients taking GP2017 had a significant 72% higher likelihood of being in remission at 6 months than those taking SB5.
Nabi et al say that their findings may reflect “a true difference between the active drugs,” but other explanations such as residual confounding and differences in excipients “cannot be ruled out.”
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