ARVO LIVE: First real-world data readouts for faricimab from Genentech

Ophthalmology Times® talked with David Tabano, PhD, from Genentech about the company's first real-world data readouts for faricimab in the treatment of DME at this year's ARVO meeting.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

David Tabano, PhD:

Hi, my name is David Tabano. I'm a Senior Health Economist at Genentech. I had the privilege of presenting our first real-world data readouts for faricimab, in the diabetic macular edema, space or DME.

We leverage the IRIS Registry, which is one of the largest EHRs in the world, capturing electronic medical record data for ophthalmology clinics throughout the US to really understand what that early clinical profile of faricimab looks like.

So we were able to identify patients who initiated faricimab between February and September of 2022, with follow-up through the end of the year. We identified roughly around 3100 DME patients who had received faricimab, both treatment naive and previously treated with other anti-VEGF agents. We found that the majority of these patients were previously treated with anti-VEGF mostly coming from aflibercept. We found that both treatment naive and previously treated patients came into starting faricimab with pretty good vision around 50%, across both sub cohorts had 20/40, or better vision when initiating faricimab. And among those who were previously treated, they were getting an average of around 5 anti-VEGF injections, and that prior treatment period at about 50ish days apart and other intervals.

When looking at the actual faricimab utilization, we found that it was robust We found that patients were with 6 months or more follow-up, were extending their intervals. And we defined extension as an interval of faricimab greater than 6 weeks apart from the prior injection. And using that interval definition, we found that the majority of patients in the DME cohorts, again over 70%, were experiencing an extension within those first 2 injections.

That was, you know, given the novelty of this therapeutic, given the treatment experience cohort that you know, had prior anti-VEGF utilization, we were pleasantly surprised to see that extension growing over time. And finally, when we're looking at best documented visual acuity, we saw that the vision remained stable.

We saw that vision remained consistent across over 4 injections among this 6 month follow-up cohort. And similarly, we saw a slight uptick in vision gains among the treatment naive population. Again, this might be a bit early to tell we're only talking about 4 injections. Sample sizes get a bit small at that point because we're waiting for follow-up.

But we're optimistic that these signals will continue to grow as the data continues to evolve, and we see more utilization uptake and, frankly, the real-world data catches up with our real-world experience.

So the studies are ongoing both for retina AMD and far retina DME using the IRIS Registry. In the coming months we hope to expand our cohort further, capture imaging analysis data and tell a more holistic approach of how faricimab patients in the real world in the US are being treated and prescribed over time.