Why real-world data matters in epilepsy research
Epilepsy affects millions of adults in the United States, and many patients live with intractable seizures that are difficult to control. As new antiseizure medications (ASMs) are approved, researchers and clinicians rely on real-world data (RWD) to understand how these therapies perform outside of clinical trials. Claims data like that found in HealthVerity Marketplace, provides valuable insight into healthcare utilization, treatment persistence, and patient outcomes at population scale.
How HealthVerity Marketplace enabled this study
One retrospective analysis used de-identified patient data from HealthVerity Marketplace, the nation’s largest ecosystem of healthcare and consumer data.1 Researchers accessed the Private Source 20 database to identify adults with epilepsy who initiated cenobamate monotherapy between May 2020 and December 2022.
Key study design details included:
- Patients with ≥2 prescription fills of cenobamate monotherapy
- Continuous pharmacy and medical enrollment for ≥180 days before and after therapy initiation
- Cohort of 299 patients, 64.9% female, with an average age of 39 years
- Most patients had a history of intractable seizures, highlighting the difficulty of this population to treat
By enabling access to longitudinal closed claims data, HealthVerity Marketplace made it possible to measure healthcare utilization outcomes over time and compare cenobamate monotherapy with previous lines of therapy.
Real-world results: reduced hospital and ER visits
The analysis found that cenobamate monotherapy was associated with significant reductions in healthcare utilization compared to previous therapies (Figure 1):
- Inpatient days per year decreased from 3.22 to 0.7
- Emergency room visits per year decreased from 0.83 to 0.27
- Rates of status epilepticus, a life-threatening seizure emergency, also declined from 0.13 to 0.03 per year
- Nearly 44% of patients had no inpatient stay, ER visit, or new therapy during cenobamate monotherapy
Figure 1: Cenobamate monotherapy was associated with significant reductions in healthcare utilization across inpatient days, ER visits and severe seizure emergencies compared to previous therapies
These findings suggest that patients who switched to cenobamate experienced meaningful improvements in stability and required fewer acute healthcare interventions.
What this means for future epilepsy studies
This study illustrates the power of real-world evidence from HealthVerity Marketplace. By syncing patient records across pharmacy and medical claims, researchers were able to measure outcomes that matter to patients, providers, and payers: fewer hospitalizations, fewer ER visits, and reduced risk of severe seizure emergencies.
With access to the nation’s largest, most stable claims datasets, HealthVerity Marketplace empowers life sciences teams to:
- Track treatment effectiveness at population scale
- Evaluate healthcare utilization and cost outcomes
- Study rare and difficult-to-treat epilepsy subgroups with unmatched precision
Real-world healthcare data for better patient outcomes
Real-world data from HealthVerity Marketplace is essential for generating evidence that informs clinical care, payer decision-making, and drug development. The cenobamate study demonstrates how accurate, de-identified claims data can highlight the impact of new therapies on healthcare utilization and patient well-being.
References
- Zhu, W., Delaney, K., Huang, Y.-L. A., Patel, R. R., Kourtis, A. P., & Hoover, K. W. (2025c). Real-world human immunodeficiency virus rna and antigen/antibody testing among people who use long-acting injectable preexposure prophylaxis. Clinical Infectious Diseases, ciaf173. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaf173
