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Several biologic drugs are available to treat severe asthma. These biologics are designed to target specific inflammatory subtypes of asthma (eosinophilic or allergic). A Rapid Review was conducted to describe the evidence on the comparative efficacy and safety of biologics, and to characterize the patient populations studied. The Rapid Review was done to determine if a subsequent health technology assessment (HTA) was feasible which would be used to provide guidance on the alignment of the drug funding criteria by the public drug plans. The evidence included in the Rapid Review mainly focused on specific severe asthma subtypes. Comparing the efficacy of biologics for asthma was challenging because of differing definitions of asthma severity and inconsistent application of severity criteria in the included studies. Recruitment and outcome reporting among different asthma subgroups was limited and varied. An HTA of the existing data is unlikely to provide new insights to further inform the reimbursement of biologics in severe asthma.
Randall et al. (Wed,) studied this question.