Trend in prescription and treatment retention of molecular-targeted drugs in 121,131 Japanese patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A population-based real-world study

Objectives To describe the real-world prescription and treatment retention of molecular-targeted drugs for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Japan. Methods A total of 204,416 patients with RA were prescribed at least one of the eight molecular-targeted drugs in 7 years from the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan covering 98.3% of the Japanese population. The retention rates of each drug as well as head-to-head comparisons were estimated by Kaplan-Meier method. Results A total of 121,131 RA patients were prescribed any molecular-targeted drug for the first time, while 36,633 uses of molecular-targeted drug were switched from another (switch use). The overall retention rates of molecular-targeted drugs at 12, 36, and 60 months were 0.64, 0.42, and 0.32 for the naive use and 0.59, 0.40, and 0.31 for the switch use, respectively. Non-tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-inhibitor molecular-targeted drugs, particularly tocilizumab and tofacitinib, had higher retention rates than TNF inhibitors for both naive and switch uses regardless of the previous drug and showed higher retention rates in head-to-head comparisons between eight molecular-targeted drugs. Conclusions Our data reveal that the real-world drug retention is overall lower than previously reported and higher with non-TNF inhibitors than with TNF inhibitors.