Drug switching in the pandemic era
Ms. Schobel said Spherix has been serially tracking neurologists’ prescribing for MS during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has clearly had an enormous dampening effect on medication switching. In mid-April, neurologists’ switching volume was down by 70%, compared with prepandemic figures. A slow recovery began in May, but by the end of the month prescription-switching volume was still down by 52%.
Of the neurologist prescriptions that are being run for switching thus far during the pandemic, 82% are being done via telemedicine. Therein hangs a tale, since neurology doesn’t readily lend itself to practice by telemedicine. Indeed, neurologists are using telemedicine to a lesser extent than physicians in the other specialties that Spherix monitors, according to Ms. Schobel. “COVID is definitely changing the MS world. Within MS, drug switching is now much more likely to involve a switch to a DMT that doesn’t impact the immune response and is not immunosuppressant, such as an injectable interferon or glatiramer acetate,” she said. “In this COVID world, safety and conservatism may end up trumping the move toward ‘time is brain’ which we’ve been talking so much about in recent years: the importance of getting patients on high-efficacy DMTs from the start in order to give them the best chance for positive outcomes.”
Ms. Schobel noted that Spherix received no industry funding to conduct these studies.