Settipane RA, et al. - Researchers assessed current direct health care and productivity loss expenses related to patients with asthma on Global Initiative for Asthma Step 4/5 therapy (“G4/5 asthma”) in the United States. They searched the IBM MarketScan Research Databases, from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2015, to identify asthma patients aged 12 years or older. Overall, 605,614 patients with asthma were identified. For G4/5 asthma vs non-G4/5 patients with asthma, the annual health care costs were estimated to be $4,384 greater; asthma-associated expenses contributed $2,183 of this difference. Findings revealed significantly greater direct and indirect costs related to G4/5 patients with asthma vs non-G4/5 patients with asthma. They also noted that variations were largely driven by those with exacerbations or high rescue medication use.