BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Decision Resources, one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that among recently treated bipolar disorder patients in the last quarter of 2010, the majority of therapies for the condition are taken for at least three months before the patient adds or switches to a new therapy. According to Treatment Algorithms in Bipolar Disorder, after continuing business, the largest source of business for bipolar therapies during the fourth quarter of 2010 was adding or switching therapies.
According to the analysis, recently treated bipolar patients who move to AstraZeneca’s Seroquel stay on the preceding therapy for 112 days, which is a shorter period of time than with other atypical antipsychotics, possibly because Seroquel is added to therapies to better control depressive symptoms.
The analysis also finds that while antiepileptics lead patient share of recently treated bipolar patients, antidepressants earn a considerable share of the bipolar disorder market with nearly a third (31.5 percent) of recently treated patients taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) in the fourth quarter of 2010.
“Polypharmacy is common in bipolar disorder, so it’s no surprise that patients are taking therapies from multiple classes,” said Decision Resources Analyst Alana Simorellis, Ph.D. “Treating depressive episodes is a significant unmet need in bipolar disorder treatment, and part of Seroquel’s success is due to its efficacy in treating bipolar depression. There is a lesson here for marketers of emerging agents in this indication; emerging therapies will need to do more than demonstrate efficacy in treating mania to be successful in this market.”
Decision Resources’ Enhances Its Treatment Algorithms Series
Through examination of patient-level claims data, Decision Resources’ Treatment Algorithms series provides exceptional insight into physicians’ prescribing trends and the factors that drive therapy choice, from diagnosis through multiple courses of treatment, for a specific disease. The service has been enhanced with a new online platform that enables users to easily toggle between diseases and time cohorts while providing a more graphical view of data, ultimately allowing for more in-depth analysis on each line of therapy. Treatment Algorithms analysis is updated quarterly to provide ongoing trending of product utilization by line of therapy and new therapy initiations.
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