Long-Acting Antibiotics Offering Once-Weekly Dosing Will See Favorable Uptake and Use as Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT)

BURLINGTON, Mass., July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources Group finds that while more than three-quarters of surveyed infectious disease (ID) specialists are willing to prescribe Durata's Dalvance (dalbavancin) and The Medicines Company's Orbactiv (oritavancin) for use as OPAT, approximately two-thirds of the respondents reported a willingness to prescribe these agents to their hospital inpatients. However, our findings indicate that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of OPAT patients are initiated on OPAT following hospital discharge, and most are discharged on OPAT on the same antibiotic they received as inpatients. These findings suggest that new antibiotics looking to gain traction in the OPAT market must gain inclusion on hospital formularies and position themselves as preferred agents in the hospital setting.

Other key findings from the 2014 U.S. TreatmentTrends report entitled Hospital Discharge and Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT):

• ID specialists as key stakeholders in OPAT market: ID specialists are the healthcare providers most frequently involved in identifying a patient for discharge on OPAT; nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of surveyed ID specialists indicated that their hospital requires prior consultation with an ID specialist to evaluate and setup patients for OPAT.
• Observation rooms/interim facilities for reducing hospital admissions: More than three quarters (82 percent) of surveyed ID specialists indicated that their hospital has facilities for keeping patients requiring short-term monitoring (less than 48 hours) without admitting them to the hospital. Over half of these facilities are used to administer IV antibiotics and can play an important role in decisions about whether to admit patients or discharge them on outpatient therapy.
• Preference for oral antibiotics over OPAT: Oral therapies offer the potential to substantially simplify antibiotic treatment compared with therapies that are administered intravenously. Not surprisingly, surveyed ID specialists reported being more likely to prescribe oral formulations of both Cubist's Sivextro (tedizolid) and Tetraphase's emerging drug eravacycline when discharging patients than OPAT with either drug, suggesting oral formulations of these agents will see greater use as discharge therapy.

Comments from Decision Resources Group Analyst Hannah E. Cummings, Ph.D.:

• "Hospitals are actively looking to cut costs and reduce or shorten admissions, and discharging patients on OPAT is an important part of their strategy. OPAT is a particularly attractive treatment modality for patients presenting to the emergency room with an infection requiring IV antibiotic therapy but not necessitating admission. ID specialists and emergency room physicians are frequently involved in identifying and recommending patients for OPAT and will likely be key stakeholders in driving uptake of new OPAT therapies."
• "Surveyed ID specialists identified a need for new OPAT drugs for infections due to drug-resistant pathogens that are dosed once daily. Although the OPAT market is highly genericized, agents demonstrating benefits in efficacy, dosing-frequency and/or administration, such as Cubist's Cubicin (daptomycin) and Merck's Invanz (ertapenem), have experienced widespread use in the OPAT market. New agents will also have to demonstrate improvements on these key attributes to successfully compete in the OPAT market segment."

About Decision Resources Group
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Christopher Comfort
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SOURCE Decision Resources Group