A pharmacoeconomic review of adalimumab in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract

The past 10 years has witnessed a major transformation in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic condition that leads to significant morbidity, impairment in quality of life and mortality. Adalimumab joins a class of biologic response modifiers that prevent joint destruction and maintain functional status. For expensive interventions such as biologic response modifiers to be a valuable use of healthcare resources, they must lower healthcare costs by reducing the prevalence of hospitalizations, assist people with rheumatoid arthiritis in maintaining employment and improve patient quality of life. The rheumatoid artiritis market is competitive and growing quickly. Policy makers are faced with decisions surrounding the value of biologic response modifiers over conventional therapies, and whether one biologic response modifier has an advantage over another.

Keywords::

• adalimumab
• biologic response modifier
• rheumatoid arthritis
• quality of life