Background: Guidelines recommend sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP1) receptor agonists as second-line therapy for patients with type 2 diabetes. Expanding their use as first-line therapy has been proposed but the clinical benefits may not outweigh their costs.
Objective: To evaluate the lifetime cost-effectiveness of a strategy of first-line SGLT2 inhibitors or GLP1 receptor agonists.
Design: Individual-level Monte Carlo-based Markov model.
Data sources: Randomized trials, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention databases, RED BOOK, and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Target population: Drug-naive U.S. patients with type 2 diabetes.
Time horizon: Lifetime.
Perspective: Health care sector.
Intervention: First-line SGLT2 inhibitors or GLP1 receptor agonists.
Outcome measures: Life expectancy, lifetime costs, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs).
Results of base-case analysis: First-line SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP1 receptor agonists had lower lifetime rates of congestive heart failure, ischemic heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke compared with metformin. First-line SGLT2 inhibitors cost $43 000 more and added 1.8 quality-adjusted months versus first-line metformin ($478 000 per quality-adjusted life-year [QALY]). First-line injectable GLP1 receptor agonists cost more and reduced QALYs compared with metformin.
Results of sensitivity analysis: By removing injection disutility, first-line GLP1 receptor agonists were no longer dominated (ICER, $327 000 per QALY). Oral GLP1 receptor agonists were not cost-effective (ICER, $823 000 per QALY). To be cost-effective at under $150 000 per QALY, costs for SGLT2 inhibitors would need to be under $5 per day and under $6 per day for oral GLP1 receptor agonists.
Limitation: U.S. population and costs not generalizable internationally.
Conclusion: As first-line agents, SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP1 receptor agonists would improve type 2 diabetes outcomes, but their costs would need to fall by at least 70% to be cost-effective.
Primary funding source: American Diabetes Association.