Eric Borrelli was awarded best graduate student poster

URI College of Pharmacy graduate student Eric Borrelli was honored this week by the Academy of Managed Care Academy Foundation for having the best graduate student poster at the academy’s annual conference in San Diego, Calif.

Borrelli’s research poster assesses geographic differences of prescription rates and rates of expenditures for two drugs used to treat prostate cancer in 2016 in the Medicare population. He described his research in his words:

“Abiraterone and enzalutamide are two oral therapies for the first line treatment of metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer. Both agents came to market and were approved by the FDA in 2012, and in 2016 were the only oral agents approved as first line treatment. At the time of their approval, they were considered to have similar efficacy.

“We used the Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data Public Use File to conduct this analysis. This database includes both Medicare fee for service patients as well as Medicare advantage patients. We calculated rates of prescriptions and rates of expenditures in each state and geographic division by dividing the total number of prescriptions or total expenditures by the population of males 65 years and older in each state/geographic region, then multiplying the result by 1,000. We calculated these rates for abiraterone, enzalutamide, and a rate of enzalutamide or abiraterone.

“The total Medicare Part D spend for abiraterone and enzalutamide exceeded $1.1 billion in 2016, and the prescription rates were similar between both abiraterone and enzalutamide (3.26 vs 3.34 prescriptions per 1,000 males 65 years and older) as were expenditure rates ($27,647 [95% CI $27,533-$27,761] vs $29,992 [95% CI: $29,863-$30,121]).

“Although nationally the total number of prescriptions and overall costs were similar for the two medications, spending rates varied significantly between certain states. Further research is needed to determine if these differences reflect variation in either quality of care or medication access.”