Assessment of Clinical and Economic Effectiveness of Alectinib for Patients with ALK+ Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer without Previous Experience of Targeted Therapy

Abstract

Aim: to assess economic consequences of alectinib compared with the recommended therapy schemes for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with tumor expression of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK+) without previous experience of targeted therapy from the Russian healthcare system perspective. Material and methods. Markov model was developed in Microsoft Excel 2010 software for cost calculation. 5-year costs of alectinib, crizotinib and ceritinib were calculated, taking into account the differences in clinical effectiveness and safety of the compared drugs. Data about clinical effectiveness and safety were derived from the network meta-analysis Steenrod A. et al, 2018, where alectinib showed superior effectiveness in the first line of therapy for ALK+ NSCLC vs crizotinib and ceritinib: relative risk (RR) of progression-free survival (PFS) was 0,50 (95% confidence interval 0,36–0,70) and 0,41 (0,25–0,67) respectively. Safety of alectinib in the first line therapy was superior to the safety of ceritinib – RR of severe adverse events (SAE)3–4 grade 0,36 (95% CI 0,17–0,79), – and was comparable with safety of chemotherapy and crizotinib – RR of SAE 3–4 grade 0,81 (95% CI 0,44–1,52) and 0,65 (95% CI 0,51–1,04) respectively. Cost effectiveness analyses and budget impact analysis were conducted from the Russian healthcare system perspective. Results. Cost of one year course of alectinib was 3 431 970 rubles, which was comparable with crizotinib (3 435 405 rub.) and 55% higher than the one-year cost of ceritinib. Cost-effectiveness ratio was lower for alectinib compared with crizotinib, incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for alectinib vs crizotinib was 2 735 900 rub., which was 66% lower than ICER for ceritinib vs crizotinib. Given the number of patients eligible for alectinib, it’s impact on State Guarantees Program of Free Medical Care is not much. Sensitivity analysis showed that the results of budget impact assessment are stable. Conclusion. Alectinib is a preferred option for patients with ALK+ NSCLC from economic point of view. It doesn’t have a significant impact on the budget within the State Guarantees Program of Free Medical Care, and also has higher effectiveness compared with crizotinib and ceritinib and better safety when compared with ceritinib.