Austedo for Tardive Dyskinesia: Efficacy and Real World Data

Verena Ramirez Campos, MD, discussed 3 posters presented by Teva examining deutetrabenazine (Austedo) for tardive dyskinesia (TD), covering long-term efficacy data, real-world outcomes, and the impact of patient education on healthcare engagement.

The first poster reported findings from RING-TD, a 3-year, single-arm, open-label extension study of deutetrabenazine in patients with TD who had completed the pivotal ARM-TD and AIM-TD phase 3 trials. Ramirez Campos highlighted that by approximately 15 months of treatment, more than 70% of enrolled patients achieved a greater than 30% reduction from baseline on the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) score—a threshold considered clinically meaningful. She emphasized that this finding extended to patients who did not respond early in treatment, underscoring the importance of sustained treatment at appropriate doses to capture late responders, a clinically important message given that premature discontinuation may deprive some patients of eventual benefit.¹

The second poster presented an ad-hoc analysis from part B of IMPACT-TD, a real-world evidence study specifically evaluating outcomes in patients treated with Austedo. While the analysis included 8 patients at the time of preliminary data cutoff, Ramirez Campos noted that 100% of patients demonstrated improvements in quality of life and achieved treatment success on both the Patient Global Impression of Change and Clinical Global Impression of Change, with the vast majority also achieving ≥30% AIMS score reduction by 3 months. She characterized these results as an early and directionally consistent confirmation that the efficacy observed in clinical trials is being replicated in real-world practice.

The third poster examined the impact of a structured patient and caregiver education initiative developed by Teva in partnership with 3 mental health advocacy organizations. Post-education assessment found that more than 53% of participants subsequently consulted a healthcare provider about their involuntary movements, and approximately 35% to 40% received a formal TD diagnosis—underscoring the critical role of disease awareness and accessible patient education in closing the gap between symptom burden and clinical consultation.²

Dr Ramirez Campos is head of US medical affairs at Teva Pharmaceuticals.

References

1. Hauser RA, Barkay H, Fernandez HH, et al. Long-term deutetrabenazine treatment for tardive dyskinesia is associated with sustained benefits and safety: a 3-year, open-label extension study. Front Neurol. 2022;13:773999.

2. Griffiths K, Won Y, Lee Z, et al. Identifying the diagnostic gap of tardive dyskinesia: an analysis of semi-structured electronic health record data. BMC Psychiatry. 2025;25(1):407.