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Article History

Received: 29 April 2024

Accepted: 26 June 2024

First Online: 19 July 2024

Declarations

:

: Mostafa Zayed, Nora Vainstein, Mohamed Fathy, and Ali Aljabban are Pfizer employees. All other authors (Alessandro Terruzzi, Abubaker AlMadani, Suhail Al-Rukn, Mohamed Farghaly, Sara A. Dallal, Anup Uboweja, Ashok Natarajan, Kumaresan Subramanyam, and Badrinath C. Ramachandrachar) report no conflict of interest.

: The study was observational in nature and involved analysis of previously collected anonymized structured data and did not impose any form of intervention. Hence, obtaining informed consent was not required for the study. Further, no institutional review board approval was required as it did not involve the collection, use, or transmission of individually identifiable data. The study adhered to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 to prevent disclosure of patient health information. The dataset utilized for the present study was publicly inaccessible. This dataset was obtained from the DHIC after adhering to all the required legal procedures to acquire and utilize this anonymized patient claims data. Under the terms of the data sharing contract with DHIC, IQVIA received a legitimate and exclusive right to use certain components of the dataset as specified in the contract. IQVIA was given authorization to apply the data for conducting anonymized and uniform analyses and research projects pertaining to health insurance claim records. Additionally, IQVIA was allowed to distribute the results and insights from the anonymized and uniform dataset to its clients for research purposes involving health insurance claim information. IQVIA pledged to adhere to established procedures to maintain compliance with applicable regulations, including those related to data privacy.