OBJECTIVES: To describe the current medical management of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients in routine practice in a national representative sample of patients, focusing on biological agents (BA) uptake. METHODS: The EGB database is a 1/97 representative sample of the national claims database covering the whole French population. RA patients were identified as adults (age >18) benefiting from full coverage (“ALD” eligibility criteria) for RA (ICD-10 codes M05-06) on January 1, 2009. Patients treated by BA were defined as RA patients with at least one claim for at least one BA over the period. BA-naïve treated patients were identified by the absence of a BA claim during the first 3 months of the study period, followed by at least one BA claim. RESULTS: Over the 3-year period, 236 patients had a BA reimbursed and 5,336 deliveries by pharmacists were observed. The proportion of BA users, either alone or in combination, was 14.0% in 2009, and 70 patients (32.7%) used a BA in combination with methotrexate. Among patients treated by BA, 85.2% used at least one TNF inhibitor during the study period. Etanercept had the highest delivery record (58.1%), followed by adalimumab (28.8%) and infliximab (15.3%). Among the whole group of patients treated by BA, 13.6% were delivered rituximab at least once. Over the period, a proportion of 73.3% of patients had one BA agent only, 19.1% experienced one switch and 7.6% had two or more switches. At 18 months, drug survival rate of the mix of first-line biologics was 71.8% [95% CI: 60.1% - 80.6%]. CONCLUSIONS: Claims database is a useful tool to describe the medical management of RA patients. These observations suggest that BA clinical use in RA disease management in France is similar to other existing European registries data.