July 11, 2024
An article by Endpoints.com cited a study that found that only about 15% of people who began taking GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy stuck with them after two years, according to a new analysis by pharmacy benefit manager Prime Therapeutics.
Prime, which is owned by a group of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, didn’t dig into why patients quit the drugs. Pat Gleason, Prime’s assistant vice president of health outcomes who led the study, said in an interview with Endpoints News that there could be a number of reasons, ranging from benefit changes that raised costs to supply shortages and side effects.
Patients also might have stopped taking the drugs because they met their goal weight, he said, or they might have switched to a compounded drug, which wouldn’t show up in a pharmacy claim. He said it’s less likely that the patients studied lost insurance for their weight loss drugs, though, because Blue’s plans tended to continue covering GLP-1s for patients already on them.
Gleason said the findings spotlight the disconnect between clinical trials and the real world. For example, 77% of patients in a major clinical trial for semaglutide were still taking the target dose 2 years later. He said the real-world data underscore the need for health plans to make sure patients get the comprehensive care, like case management and behavior modification programs, that patients got in some trials.
Prime analyzed insurance claims for roughly 3,400 patients who had started taking a GLP-1 in 2021, were continuously enrolled in commercial insurance, and were diagnosed with obesity or had a body mass index of greater than 30. Patients with diabetes were excluded.
The analysis found that an increasing number of patients quit taking their drugs as time went on. Only about 47% of patients were still taking a GLP-1 at 180 days, 29% at one year, and 14.8% at two years.
Patients taking drugs that are injected weekly, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, stuck with them for longer.
Marketdata/DietBusinessWatch Commentary
Staying on any weight loss program for the long term requires a lot of commitment by the dieter, both in terms of money and behavior change, but it also is incumbent upon the program provider to provide the support needed to keep patients on track (motivation, coaching, adjustment of dosages, management of drug side effects, navigating insurance, empathy, customized meal plans, exercise, etc.). It’s not all just about injections. That’s where many telehealth weight loss programs fall short — the personal support.
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