Patients Report Long-term Satisfaction with Valbenazine for Tardive Dyskinesia

Eiry W. Roberts, MD

Patients with tardive dyskinesia showed improvements after taking once-daily valbenazine and had high satisfaction rates, according to a poster presented at the 2018 International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (MDS) in Hong Kong.

Researchers from Neurocrine Biosciences evaluated improvements in tardive dyskinesia symptoms and patient satisfaction after long-term valbenazine use, either as part of the KINECT 3 or KINECT 4 trials. The patients received either 40 mg or 80 mg once-daily valbenazine for as long as 48 weeks. This assessment is a “rollover study” and incorporated a Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire to judge valbenazine as a treatment for tardive dyskinesia.

“Similar to the KINECT 4 Abnormal Voluntary Movement Scale (AIMS) and Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC) results, this long-term, extension study confirmed the positive overall perception of Ingrezza treatment among participants, suggesting a meaningful benefit to patients’ everyday lives,” Eiry W. Roberts, MD and the chief medical officer at Neurocrine Biosciences told MD Magazine®. “Patient satisfaction rates remained high with long-term treatment of Ingrezza, even in patients treated for up to 2 years.”

After a washout period from prior valbenazine treatment, the patients aged 18 to 85 years of age were re-initiated at 40 mg valbenazine and escalated to 80 mg if they tolerated it well. If they did not tolerate it well, they were moved to the 40 mg daily dose. They were treated for 72 weeks or until commercial availability, the researchers reported.

The 160 patients also assessed themselves on the Clinical Global Impression of Severity-TD, ranging from 1 (normal or not ill) to 7 (extremely ill). The Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire ranged from 1 (very satisfied) to 5 (very dissatisfied).

There were 35 patients on the 40 mg dose, 117 patients on the 80 mg dose, and 8 patients who went from the 80 mg to the 40 mg doses. Additionally, 138 patients continued in the study when valbenazine became commercially available, the study authors said. There were very few patients who reached week 60 (4 patients) or week 72 (zero patients) due to the study’s termination.

The researchers reported that the percentage of patients with a severity scale score of ≤2 increased from the baseline to week 48. At baseline, before the reintroduction of valbenazine, 5.7% of the 40 mg patients and 18.1% of the 80 mg patients were ≤2 on the severity scale. After week 48, that changed. There were 46.2% of the 40 mg patients and 74.4% of the 80 mg patients ≤2 on the scale.

In terms of the patient satisfaction scores, almost all of the patients reported their satisfaction with valbenazine at baseline: 100% of the 40 mg patients and 99.1% of the 80 mg patients. After 48 weeks of treatment, those scores remained nearly unchanged. The 40 mg patients were still reporting 100% “very satisfied or somewhat satisfied” and 97.4% of the 80 mg patients reached that threshold.

The poster was titled “Global Improvement and Patient Satisfaction: Results from a Long-Term, Open-Label, Rollover Study of Valbenazine in Tardive Dyskinesia” and was presented at the Drug-Induced Movement Disorders session.