Monitor the withdrawal of Avacopan Vifor in your organisation: new measure launched on OpenPrescribing Hospitals
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We’ve launched a new measure to track the remaining use of avacopan. It is already live - have a look for your organisation now!
What is Avacopan Vifor used for?
Avacopan Vifor, in combination with a rituximab or cyclophosphamide regimen, is indicated for adults with severe, active granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) or microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), rare autoimmune diseases affecting small blood vessels.
Why build this measure now?
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) published its review of Avacopan Vifor on 1st September 2026. The MHRA determined that the available evidence no longer supports a positive benefit-risk balance. The review followed questions about the integrity and reliability of data from the pivotal clinical study (ADVOCATE NCT02994927), concluding that the study can no longer be relied upon to demonstrate the efficacy of Avacopan Vifor.
The MHRA review follows other regulators scrutinising the evidence underpinning the risk-benefit profile of avacopan. The details of which are outlined in this Lancet Rheumatology editorial - ‘The end for avacopan’.
What’s next for UK patients?
From 1 September 2026, the MHRA suspended the use, supply, and sale of Avacopan Vifor (formally known as Tavneos) to new patients. There will be a six month managed withdrawal period where supply only to existing patients will still be permitted. The MHRA intends to revoke the UK marketing authorisation on 1st March 2027.
The MHRA has advised healthcare professionals to:
- Not start Avacopan Vifor in new patients.
- Review patients currently receiving the medicine and consider alternative treatment options where necessary.
Patients should not stop treatment without first discussing their care with their specialist healthcare professional.
We built this measure to help organisations understand their current use of avacopan and monitor progress towards transitioning existing patients to alternative treatments ahead of the planned revocation of the UK marketing authorisation on 1st March 2027.
How to explore the avacopan measure
On OpenPrescribing Hospitals, the measure shows a count of the number of avacopan capsules being issued each month. You can look at usage broken down by individual hospital trust, ICB, NHS region and nationally. In the example below, you can see how much avacopan was issued at three different NHS trusts.
Conducting your own analyses
You can view the avacopan data directly on the Analyse page. If you scroll down on the Analyse page, you will find a table summarising the analysis in a table rather than a chart (see image below showing the quantity of avacopan issued in July 2026 broken down by trust).
Get in touch
As a small team of clinicians, academics, and software engineers, we build and launch dashboards quickly by working in an agile manner, openly describing our methods and code. If you have any suggestions for further developments of our measures on OpenPrescribing or OpenPrescribing Hospitals, please get in touch at bennett@phc.ox.ac.uk