Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) who have inadequate responses to antidepressants (ADs) can benefit from augmentation with atypical antipsychotics (AAs). Cariprazine, a D3/D2 receptor partial agonist, is approved for schizophrenia and for manic, mixed, or depressive episodes associated with bipolar I disorder. Cariprazine is also currently under investigation for the adjunctive treatment of MDD. The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to describe healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and associated medical costs with cariprazine and other adjunctive AA therapies for MDD.

IBM® MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters, Medicare Supplemental, and Medicaid databases were searched for claims made from 01-Jan-2018 to 31-Mar-2021. The study population included adults (≥18 years) who met the following criteria: ≥1 inpatient claim with an MDD diagnosis or ≥2 outpatient claims that were >30 days apart; ≥1 AD therapy after MDD diagnosis; ≥1 branded or generic adjunctive AA (with AD); enrollment for ≥6 and ≥12 months for baseline and follow-up analyses, respectively. Branded AAs were analyzed individually; generic AAs were grouped. MDD-related HCRU outcomes per person over the 12-month follow-up period included inpatient stays, inpatient costs, office visits, and office visit costs, with adjusted pairwise comparisons between cariprazine and other AAs. Statistical significance was defined as the 95% confidence interval (CI) for the estimated mean ratio (EMR) of comparator AA to cariprazine not including 1 (i.e., value indicating no difference).

Analyses included 46,197 patients, with AA cohorts as follows: generics (n=39,410, including mostly aripiprazole and quetiapine); brexpiprazole (n=3,249); lurasidone (n=1,795); cariprazine (n=1,051); quetiapine-XR (n=644). A majority of patients across cohorts were women (range, 65.7% to 75.4%). Inpatient stays were statistically significantly fewer with cariprazine than all other AA therapies (EMR range [95% CI]: 1.7 [1.2–2.3] to 2.9 [2.1–3.9] for brexpiprazole and generics, respectively). Inpatient costs were lower for cariprazine than other branded AAs and statistically significantly lower compared to generics (2.4 [1.6–4.1]). Office visits were fewer with cariprazine than all other AAs and significantly lower than generics (1.1 [1.03–1.2]), lurasidone (1.3 [1.2–1.4]), and brexpiprazole (1.4 [1.2–1.5]). Office visit costs were also lower for cariprazine than all other AAs and statistically significantly lower than lurasidone (1.2 [1.03–1.5) and brexpiprazole (1.4 [1.2–1.6]).

The results of this study suggest that in patients with MDD, adjunctive treatment with cariprazine is associated with statistically significantly lower HCRU for certain outcomes and numerically lower medical costs compared to other branded AAs, along with statistically significantly lower HCRU and medical costs versus generic Aas.

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