Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Pharmacotherapy 2013 Dec;33(12):1299-307

Use of Prescription Antiobesity Drugs in the United States.

Hampp C, Kang EM, Borders-Hemphill V

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To examine national trends in prescription antiobesity drug use in the United States. DESIGN: Data analysis. DATA SOURCE: The IMS Health Vector One National and Total Patient Tracker and Encuity Research Treatment Answers databases, the Source Healthcare Analytics Source Lx database, and IMS LifeLink database. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: National drug use estimates from 1991-2011 were extracted from the IMS Health Vector One National database, and patient characteristics from 2008-2011 were extracted from the Vector One Total Patient Tracker and Encuity Research Treatment Answers databases. The Source Healthcare Analytics Source Lx database was used to examine duration of antiobesity drug use from 2002-2011, with a sensitivity analysis performed using the IMS LifeLink database. In 2011, approximately 2.74 million patients used antiobesity drugs, predominantly phentermine (2.43 million patients). The use of prescription orlistat and sibutramine was relatively uncommon. Eighty-five percent of antiobesity drug users were female, 62% were aged 17-44 years, and 4.5% had a body mass index of