According to researchers, imatinib is projected to become the most cost-effective initial treatment strategy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) after its patent expires later this year.
When brand-name drugs lose patent protection, a flood of generic versions typically follows. As a result, researchers, led by William V Padula, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Baltimore, MD), predicted that imatinib will decline in price by 60% to 80% for the second six months following generic entry and by 10% to 30% thereafter.
To determine the drug’s projected cost-effectiveness, taking into consideration its projected pricing, Padula’s team constructed 5-year cost-effectiveness models to compare initial treatment with generic imatinib before switching to the other tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (TKIs), dasatinib or nilotinib, with the physician’s choice of initial treatment. The primary outcome was cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), and 5-year overall survival was determined by a systematic review of clinical trial results.
Both the imatinib and physician’s choice strategies met the willingness to pay threshold of $100,000 per QALY. Results revealed that the imatinib-first regimen ($277,401; 3.87 QALYs) versus the physician’s choice strategy ($365,744; 3.97 QALYs) led to only a 0.10 reduction in QALYs while producing savings of $88,343 over 5 years.
From this, Dr Padula and his colleagues concluded that imatinib will be the most cost-effective initial treatment strategy for CML-CP once it loses patent protection.
