Tezepelumab reduced annual exacerbations in patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma regardless of their use of additional controller medications.
Presentation findings were based on a post hoc analysis of the phase 3, 52-week NAVIGATOR study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03347279), which assessed the efficacy of the human monoclonal antibody tezepelumab. The multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled NAVIGATOR study, which included 1059 patients aged 12 to 80 years receiving either tezepelumab 210 mg (n=528) or placebo (n=531) assessed the annualized asthma exacerbation rate (AAER) and the change in prebronchodilator (BD) forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) in patients receiving medium- or high-dose inhaled corticosteroids and at least 1 other asthma controller with or without oral corticosteroids.
In the post hoc analysis, investigators assessed the efficacy of tezepelumab in NAVIGATOR participants according to the number of additional asthma controller medications they used. Among participants, 493 received 1 additional asthma controller; 381 received 2; and 185 received 3 or more. Long-acting β-agonists were the most frequently received additional asthma medications. Read more here.
Switching Biologic Therapy in Severe Asthma Yields Worse Outcomes
Patients with severe asthma who switch or stop biologic therapy have worse clinical outcomes and use more health care resources those who continue the same biologic treatment, according to research findings presented at the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) 2022 Annual Meeting, held October 16 to 19, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Researchers compared patients with severe asthma who continued, switched, or stopped biologic treatment by evaluating clinical outcomes and health care resource utilization observed in the CLEAR Study, an observational, multicenter including 1859 adults from 23 countries who were part of the International Severe Asthma Registry from December 2015 through August 2021.
The clear study analyzed patient data collected for at least 12 months prior to and at least 6 months following biologic therapy initiation. Patients were stratified according to therapy usage: continued (used first biologic at least 6 months following therapy initiation), switched (discontinued first biologic after less than 6 months and received a different biologic), and stopped (discontinued first biologic after less than 6 months and did not receive another biologic). Propensity score matching was utilized for all residual confounders. Read more here.
