Osimertinib in the treatment of resected EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer: a cost-effectiveness analysis in the United States

Front Pharmacol. 2024 Mar 28:15:1300183. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1300183. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Background: In the double-blind phase III ADAURA randomized clinical trial, adjuvant osimertinib showed a substantial overall survival benefit in patients with stage IB to IIIA, EGFR-mutated, completely resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis comparing the use of adjuvant osimertinib to placebo in patients with stage IB to IIIA, EGFR-mutated, resected NSCLC. Methods: Based on the results obtained from the ADAURA trial, a Markov model with three-state was employed to simulate patients who were administered either osimertinib or placebo until disease recurrence or completion of the study period (3 years). Quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), lifetime costs, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) were calculated with a willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $150,000 per QALY. Both univariate and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were carried out to explore the robustness of the model. Results: Osimertinib produced additional 1.59 QALYs with additional costs of $492,710 compared to placebo, giving rise to ICERs of $309,962.66/QALY. The results of the univariate sensitivity analysis indicated that the utility of disease-free survival (DFS), cost of osimertinib, and discount rate had the greatest impact on the outcomes. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that osimertinib exhibited a 0% chance of being considered cost-effective for patients using a WTP threshold $150,000/QALY. Conclusion: In our model, osimertinib was unlikely to be cost-effective compared to placebo for stage IB to IIIA, EGFR-mutated, completely resected NSCLC patients from the perspective of a U.S. payer at a WTP threshold of $150,000 per QALY.

Keywords: ADAURA; Markov model; Osimertinib; cost-effectiveness analysis; non-small cell lung cancer.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was funded by China anti-cancer association HER2 target Chinese research fund (No. CETSDSSCORP239018), the key project of science and technology development fund of Tianjin education commission for higher education (No. 2022ZD064), China, and Tianjin key medical discipline (specialty) construction project (TJYXZDXK-010A).