Budget Impact Analysis of Using Daunorubicin-Cytarabine Liposome in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Therapy-Related AML or AML and Myelodysplasia-Related Changes.

Background: Current national estimates for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) indicate this disease accounts for 1.1% of new cancer diagnoses and 1.8% of cancer deaths in the United States. The 5-year overall survival rate for patients with AML was 27.4% between 2008 and 2014. The standard induction for patients with AML includes cytarabine, infused for 7 days, with 3 once-daily injections of an anthracycline, such as daunorubicin, known as the 7+3 regimen. Daunorubicin plus cytarabine liposomal encapsulation for injection was approved in the United States in 2017 for adults with newly diagnosed therapy-related AML (tAML) or AML with myelodysplasia-related changes (AML-MRC).

Objective: To estimate the annual budget impact of introducing daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome as induction treatment for patients with tAML or AML-MRC in the United States over a 3-year period.

Methods: The model consisted of a simple decision analytic framework for a 1- to 3-year period. We used an incidence-based approach to estimate the annual number of patients newly diagnosed with tAML or AML-MRC in a hypothetical 1-million-member plan. Patients were allocated to 2 groups based on when daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome became available, with the base-case group allocated to the 7+3 regimen, and another group allocated to daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome treatment. The incidence of AML was estimated as 4.3 per 100,000 people. Efficacy measures included the proportion of complete responders, proportion of patients who had undergone transplantation, and survival at 180 and 365 days. Inpatient drug and hospitalization costs were based on diagnosis-related group rates, and outpatient drug costs on wholesale acquisition costs.

Results: Based on this hypothetical 1-million-member health plan, 15.1 members would receive intensive induction for newly diagnosed tAML or AML-MRC annually. Increasing the use of daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome (assumption of year 1, 20%; year 2, 50%; year 3, 80%) resulted in a 3-year incremental cumulative budget impact of $72,041 (1.7% increase for patients with tAML or AML-MRC), with a per-member per-month cost of $0.0032 at year 3. Over a 3-year period, the use of daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome would result in an estimated increase in the number of patients with a complete response to therapy by 2.72 (23.1%), which would lead to an incremental cost decrease of $179,956 per responding patient compared with the use of the 7+3 regimen in the base-case group.

Conclusions: Based on these results, induction treatment with daunorubicin-cytarabine liposome for patients with tAML or AML-MRC instead of the 7+3 regimen may have a limited economic impact on the budget of commercial health plans and may result in cost offsets, particularly in patients who respond to therapy.