Presentations & Events

PHAR research was well represented at AMCP Nexus 2019, with 7 posters from the secondary data analysis and health economics teams presented. The secondary data analysis study topics covered a wide variety of conditions and used multiple data sources, including using insurance claims to examine asthma-related health service use, treatment patterns in narcolepsy, and the epidemiology of hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis; as well as using hospital data to estimate costs associated with diffuse large b-cell lymphoma. The health economics studies were based on the budget impact of perampanel on pediatric and adult patients with partial onset seizures. The posters and related manuscripts can be accessed on the PHAR website.

Jesse Ortendahl, Director of Health Economics at PHAR, recently spoke at the 2019 annual meeting of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology in San Antonio, TX. At the meeting, Jesse joined Dr. Seth J. Baum, MD, FACC, FACPM, FAHA, FNLA, FASPC, in presenting the symposium “Economics 101- What Every Clinician Needs to Know”. This symposium was designed to provide clinicians with essential information to allow them to better understand, critique, and utilize economic evaluations.

Two studies conducted by PHAR were presented at the 24th Congress of the European Hematological Association in Amsterdam. This research, done in partnership with Celgene Corporation, shed light on the treatment patterns and economic burden associated with relapse in patients with follicular lymphoma. The first study showed that over a quarter of second-line treatment regimens for relapsed follicular lymphoma fail, suggesting a need for alternative treatment options. The second revealed a substantial burden of medical costs in the period following relapse. The two posters on treatment patterns and costs can be accessed on the PHAR publications page.

Three studies conducted by teams at PHAR were presented at the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting in San Diego. One study done in partnership with AstraZeneca illustrated how value framework tools designed by ASCO, ICER, and NCCN can be used in a real-world setting by physicians, pharmacists, and health services researchers to systematically assess therapy value in oncology. The two studies done in partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Development & Commercialization, Inc. and H. Lundbeck A/S focused on the impact of different antipsychotics on medical costs in patients with schizophrenia. The posters can be accessed on the PHAR website.

At the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Symposium, two of PHAR’s newest studies were presented. One study done in partnership with Akcea Therapeutics estimated helathcare utilization and cost among patients with hereditary transtheyretin amyloidosis (hATTR) by analyzing insurance claims. Another study, in partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, examined the effectiveness of long-acting injectables in reducing psychiatric hospitalization among patients with bipolar I disorder.

Three studies conducted by the secondary data analysis team at PHAR were presented at the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting held in Boston, MA. The studies focused on different disease areas and outcomes, with one study on the health care utilization and costs of newly diagnosed AL amyloidosis, another study on adherence to atypical antipsychotics among patients with bipolar disorder, and another on the disease burden of hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis. All studies were well-received at AMCP 2018, and the posters can be viewed on the PHAR website here.

Research focused on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) conducted by PHAR and supported by Genentech, Inc. was well-represented at the CHEST Annual Meeting 2016. One study was selected as an oral presentation and two were presented as posters. The oral presentation reported on the prevalence of comorbidities in Medicare IPF patients versus disease free controls, and whether it increased over time. The posters presented analyses of mortality, and cardiovascular burden and medication use among IPF patients. The posters can be accessed on the PHAR website here.

In association with the researchers at Genentech, Inc., studies conducted by PHAR were a strong presence at the American Thoracic Society Conference (ATS) 2016. One was selected as an oral presentation and three were presented as posters. The study chosen for oral presentation reported on the overall in-hospital mortality, length of stay (LOS), and hospitalization cost in patients with IPF admitted to hospitals in the US, and the posters presented a more in-depth set of data on the mortality and resource utilization of IPF. A study on whether allergic status is associated with increased number of asthma exacerbations was also presented. The posters can be accessed on the PHAR website here.

In response to the rise of effective but expensive new cancer treatments, several organizations have put forth “value frameworks” for oncology. These frameworks, produced by organizations including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), and the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), are tools designed to help doctors, patients, and insurance companies determine how much value a treatment provides relative to its cost. Researchers at PHAR, Tufts, UCLA, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, collaborating on the first published evaluation of the reliability of these frameworks, found only fair to good consistency between different individuals using the same framework to evaluate the same drug. They also found that using each of the three different frameworks could lead to significantly different conclusions about the relative value of cancer treatments. These findings suggest it may be premature to use these value frameworks in treatment decision-making without further evidence of their reliability and validity. The study results were presented at the 2016 ASCO meeting.