Role of Oral Semaglutide in type-2 Diabetes from Managed Care Perspective

Release Date: 30-Nov-2020

The increase prevalence of diabetes is of global concern. There are substantial consequences of uncontrolled T2D, including microvascular complications that place patients at risk of chronic kidney disease, diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic neuropathy. As a result, diabetes is a leading cause of kidney failure, blindness, and lower-extremity amputations There is increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with T2D. Due to increased patients and side effects, it acts a burden on the US healthcare systems.

Early and improved gycemic control have significantly shown to reduce the health care cost and also reduce the risk of developing further complications. It is found that patients who are new diagnosed with T2D are associated with increased microvascular and macrovascular events, and an increased risk of death. Thus, early achievement of glycemic control (within 1 year of a T2D diagnosis) is important to reduce the risk of long-term complications in T2D.

The data collected from the  phase 3a PIONEER clinical trial program, which analyzed for oral semaglutide in over 9500 patients with T2D in a range of clinical settings and evaluate the efficacy of oral semaglutide in terms of glycemic control and body weight, assess cardiovascular (CV) outcomes and also discuss the safety and tolerability profile of oral semaglutide, and describe patient-reported outcomes.

In a recent article which review the burden of T2D in the United States, mainly emphasize the high direct medical cost related to the diabetes  (estimated to total $237 billion in the United States in 2017), which are primarily driven by prescription medication costs for antidiabetic agents, hospital inpatient and outpatient care, and physician office-based care, and describe indirect costs.This socioeconomic burden is compounded by a further $90 to $250 billion in indirect costs, such as lost productivity.

Further, the study revealed that T2D significantly impairs patients health related quality of life which further affect the physical and mental functioning and social interactions. The assessment of patient-reported outcome is increasingly utilized in clinical trials which will further contribute to the treatment decisions in future.