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Specialists Report Decreasing Use of Combination Therapy in Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease, According to Study by GfK Market Measures

Research reveals growing reliance on single drug therapy for patients in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease

EAST HANOVER, NJ, Aug. 29, 2008 — Both psychiatrists and primary care physicians prescribed combination therapy to a smaller proportion of mild and moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients in the past year.  Usage of the Namenda/Aricept combination, in particular, has seen declines by these physicians, though growth in prescribing each drug independently continues as part of trend toward single drug therapy, according to new research by GfK Market Measures. 

Comparing figures from GfK’s research last year with psychiatrists and primary care physicians (PCPs), there is evidence of a considerable decline in both specialists’ use of combination therapy to treat patients with mild and moderate Alzheimer’s disease.  Overall use of combination therapy by psychiatrists in the last year dropped from 37 percent to 24 percent with mild patients and 54 percent to 45 percent with moderate patients.  Comparable figures for PCPs declined from 25 percent to 16 percent for mild patients and 45 percent to 35 percent for moderate patients.

Although combination therapy virtually always includes Namenda, focusing on the most frequently prescribed multiple drug regimen of Namenda/Aricept further demonstrates the significant decline in usage.  Use of Namenda/Aricept with mild patients has dropped in the last year from 27 percent to 17 percent among psychiatrists and 18 percent to 10 percent among PCPs.  Use with moderate patients saw an even greater decline, moving from 41 percent to 28 percent among psychiatrists and 37 percent to 24 percents among PCPs.

Despite some declines in usage, Aricept continues to maintain universal market penetration among all specialists and is used by more patients at each severity level than any other agent.  Namenda is also seeing greater use as monotherapy, prescribed by psychiatrists and PCPs to a greater proportion of patients across all severities.  In particular, Namenda’s use by both specialists as a monotherapy with moderate patients doubled in the past year alone, increasing from 5 percent to 10 percent.

"The reality for Namenda is the increased single therapy usage is unlikely to balance the decreased usage of the various combination regimens,” said Kim Lazarus, vice president and category business leader, neurology, for GfK Market Measures.  "Although our research shows, based on physician recall alone, messaging for Namenda primarily focuses on its use in combination with other agents, PCPs, in particular, are more likely to find the Namenda messages to be believable than the Aricept messaging, which tends to be more diffuse in scope.  Should physicians continue to rely more on single drug therapy when treating Alzheimer’s disease in its earlier stages, Forest may need to more strongly tout the increased efficacy benefits of combination therapy, particularly in conversations with psychiatrists.  Other messages should address using combination therapy earlier in the moderate stage of the disease.”

208 Physicians Share Their Insights

Reflecting insights from 208 physicians, including general and family practitioners, neurologists, psychiatrists and internists fielded via Internet questionnaire in June 2008, GfK Market Measures’ 2008 Alzheimer’s Disease Physician Study provides a comprehensive analysis of the Alzheimer’s disease market from the perspective of treating physicians.