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US pricing watchdog: AbbVie's Rinvoq not as cost-effective as Humira

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review said AbbVie Inc. and Pfizer Inc.'s rheumatoid arthritis drugs Rinvoq and Xeljanz were not as cost-effective in treating the disease as another AbbVie medicine, Humira.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissue, causing pain, swelling and bone erosion.

The drug pricing watchdog evaluated rheumatoid arthritis therapies belonging to a class of drugs called JAK inhibitors. These include Xeljanz, or tofacitinib; Eli Lilly and Co. and Incyte Corp.'s Olumiant, or baricitinib; and Rinvoq or upadacitinib, all of which work by negating the activity of the Janus kinase enzymes in the body.

These medicines were up against another class of drugs called TNF inhibitors — of which Humira is a part — as well as other, older disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.

Rinvoq exceeded the agency's cost-effectiveness threshold even though it provided a marginal clinical benefit over Humira. While Xeljanz was also marginally better than Humira, it cost higher than the drug and above what ICER considers justified.

The agency said all analyses suggest that Rinvoq, at its current assumed net price, exceeds commonly cited cost-utility thresholds and that more comparable data is required to evaluate the short and long term efficacy of the JAK inhibitors.