Real-world studies of biological treatment in severe asthma: population-based registries, prediction of response and patient-tailored outcomes

This thesis focuses on real-world studies of biological treatment in severe asthma. We studied the real-world effectiveness of the expensive biologics, adding to the knowledge derived from randomized controlled trials. In addition, we connected several real-world population-based registries across Europe, paving the way for future real-world studies analyzing data from thousands of patients in Europe in a privacy-protected way. One of our studies is the first study using this approach, demonstrating the real-world effectiveness of mepolizumab in almost a thousand patients. Furthermore, we focused on the prediction of response to the expensive biologics. We found that adding an early evaluation significantly adds to the prediction of future response. Lastly, we focused on patient-tailored outcomes and found that a large proportion of patients experience a waning of the effect of their biologic over the course of the dosing interval. This study opens the way for future studies that work towards even better biological treatment of patients with severe asthma.