Biologics in severe asthma: the role of real-world evidence from registries

Abstract

Asthma is one of the most common noncommunicable diseases; in the majority of patients it is well controlled with inhaled bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids, but the management of severe asthma has been a significant challenge historically. The introduction of novel biologic drugs in the past few decades has revolutionised the field, presenting physicians with a variety of biologic drugs with different mechanisms for the treatment of severe asthma.It is of crucial importance to evaluate the effectiveness of these drugs by following their “real-life” effectiveness rather than relying solely on their efficacy, established in carefully designed clinical trials, which therefore do not necessarily match the profile of the real-life patient. Understanding the actual effectiveness of the specific drugs in real-life patients is a crucial part of tailoring the right drugs to the right patients. Registries serve as an important tool in obtaining real-life evidence, since they are in effect observational studies, following the entire patient population.

Next generation health guidelines: The role of real‐life data in evidence‐based medicine

“…In the third session the growing role of registries was recognized. [6][7][8][9] Theimportanceofproperlydesignedregistrysystemswas highlightedaskeyfortheirvalidity.Severeasthmaisagoodexample…”

Real-world data: A relevant component in the framework of scientific evidence

“…This is underlining why we should consider (recruit) obese asthma patients in trials to be able to extend biologic treatments to them, or, and as such the role of RW data is evident, we should properly collect data in real life. For this purpose, Severe Asthma Registries can play an important role [ 12 ].…”

“…This perspective is of interest to have proposals about the qualitative values of the different RW studies, such as for studies concerning biologics in severe asthma [ 12 ].…”

Severe asthma care trajectories: the French RAMSES cohort

“…Many of these advances have been achieved through patient phenotyping allowing the development of novel treatments such as biological therapies. Severe asthma registries appear crucial to the global effort to decipher severe asthma mechanisms, identify biomarkers, analyse the real-life effectiveness of therapeutic strategies and participate in the overall improvement of severe asthma management [ 3 , 4 ]. Recent international severe asthma registries highlighted important differences in treatment strategies across Europe and worldwide [ 5 , 6 ].…”