In adults with generalized myasthenia gravis (MG), adding a treatment called nipocalimab (sold as Imaavy) to a patient’s usual care lowered how much healthcare they needed and cut costs by making hospital stays and emergency room visits less frequent and less serious, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Medical Economics.
In this study, researchers looked at how much care people needed, how much it cost and what made the most expensive events more likely. They used information from a large trial called Vivacity-MG3, which tested whether nipocalimab was safe and effective in adults with generalized MG.
The study included 153 patients. Fewer people who took nipocalimab had at least one hospital stay or emergency room visit compared to those who got a placebo. Overall, these hospital stays and emergency events happened about 51% less often with nipocalimab.
People who took nipocalimab also spent fewer days in the hospital, regardless of why they were admitted. When they were admitted for any reason at all, people on nipocalimab stayed about eight days instead of about 15 days. And when the hospital stay was because of their MG specifically, they stayed about 11 days instead of about 18 days.
The treatment was estimated to save about $10,860 to $13,253 per patient each year.
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The study also found two things that made costly events more likely: when a patient’s daily living score got worse, and when a patient started out with more trouble breathing.
“These findings reinforce the critical role of early, consistent and sustained disease control in mitigating the risk of costly acute events and highlight the potential for nipocalimab to address pervasive unmet needs and the economic burden in gMG management,” the study’s authors said.
The study did have some limits. The Vivacity-MG3 study wasn’t originally designed to explore the effect of nipocalimab on hospital stays and costs, and the researchers went back and looked at that information afterward. Furthermore, the study did not last very long, making it hard to know whether these benefits hold up over many years.
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