Clinical Benefits of Treating Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus with iGlarLixi: A Patient-Level Simulation Study

The fixed-ratio combination of insulin glargine (iGlar) plus lixisenatide (iGlarLixi) has proven efficacious in clinical trials; however, there is limited evidence of its benefits in a variety of real-world patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) who present in routine clinical practice.

A large integrated claims and EHR database was used to identify two real-world (RW) cohorts (ages ≥ 18) with T2DM who were eligible for treatment with iGlarLixi. At baseline, the first cohort (insulin cohort) received insulin with or without oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs), and the second cohort (OAD-only cohort) received OADs only. A Monte Carlo patient-level simulation was applied to each cohort based on treatment strategies and efficacies from the LixiLan-L and LixiLan-O trials to estimate reductions in glycated hemoglobin A1C (A1C) and the percentage achieving age-based A1C goals (≤ 7% for ages < 65 and ≤ 8% for ages ≥ 65) at 30 weeks.

The RW insulin (N = 3797) and OAD-only (N = 17,633) cohorts differed considerably in demographics, age, clinical characteristics, baseline A1C levels, and background OAD therapies compared to the populations in the Lixilan-L and Lixilan-O trials. Regardless of the cohort description, A1C goals were achieved among 52.6% vs. 31.6% (p < 0.001) of patients in the iGlarLixi vs. the iGlar arms in the insulin cohort simulation, while A1C goals were achieved among 59.9% vs. 49.3% and 32.8% (p < 0.001) of patients in the OAD-only cohort simulation in the iGlarLixi vs. the iGlar and lixisenatide arms, respectively.

Irrespective of the treatment regimen at baseline (insulin vs. OAD only), this patient-level simulation demonstrated that a greater proportion of patients achieved their A1C goals with iGlarlixi compared to iGlar or lixisenatide alone. These findings suggest that the benefits of iGlarLixi extend to clinically distinct RW populations.