Patients with DED prescribed Miebo have higher refill rates than those on cyclosporine
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Key takeaways:
- Most patients on Miebo refilled their prescription within 60 days vs. those on cyclosporine (67.3% vs. 26.2%).
- Two-thirds of all patients received a prescription without a recorded dry eye disease diagnosis.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Patients with dry eye disease prescribed Miebo eye drops had a higher 60-day refill rate compared with those using cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion, according to a poster at Optometry’s Meeting.
“Comfort and tolerability of topical dry eye medications have long been a driving factor for poor patient compliance,” Adam Alexander, OD, director of medical affairs at Bausch + Lomb, told Healio. “We certainly need more data over a longer period of time, but the refill rates for Miebo in this study suggest that patients may be tolerating the drop well and showing a willingness to continue their treatment.”
Alexander and colleagues used the IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Claims database to identify adult patients with dry eye disease who newly initiated Miebo (perfluorohexyloctane ophthalmic solution, Bausch + Lomb) or cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.05% from Sept. 1, 2023 to Nov. 30, 2023. Researchers examined clinical and demographic characteristics and refill rates after first prescription.
According to results, demographic characteristics were similar between perfluorohexyloctane (n = 7,209; mean age, 60.6 years; 79.9% women) and cyclosporine (n = 75,871; mean age, 66.6 years; 80.4% women) groups, although the former had fewer patients on Medicare (30.5% vs. 55.4%). Most patients in both groups lived in the South (41.5% vs. 37.9%).
Optometrists provided the index prescription for 54.7% in the perfluorohexyloctane group vs. 42.9% in the cyclosporine group, and most patients in both groups (93.1% vs. 56.9%) received a 30-day supply. Patients in the perfluorohexyloctane group were more likely to receive their prescription by mail (75.9% vs. 5.3%), while those in the cyclosporine group relied more on retail (92.2% vs. 23.4%).
In both groups, only about a third of patients had a recorded diagnosis of dry eye disease before receiving their prescription. The perfluorohexyloctane group was significantly more likely to have a prior history of dry eye medication use, suggesting these patients were further along in their disease progression.
Notably, 67.3% of patients in the perfluorohexyloctane group refilled their index prescription within 60 days compared with only 26.2% in the cyclosporine group.
“I was surprised to see that only 38.5% of patients who were prescribed Miebo and 33.3% of patients prescribed either branded or generic cyclosporine were identified as having received a dry eye disease diagnosis at the date of their prescription or in the 12-month baseline period prior to the index date,” Alexander said. “It would be interesting to perform further analysis of this data to see if the underdiagnosing of dry eye disease in this dataset is originating primarily from eye care providers, or perhaps being skewed by health care providers from other specialties who also report into this database.”
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Alexander A, et al. Early adoption and utilization of perfluorohexyloctane for dry eye disease. Presented at: Optometry’s Meeting; June 19-22, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee.
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