The impact of willingness-to-pay threshold on price reduction recommendations for oncology drugs : a review of assessments conducted by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health

Since late 2020, the Canadian Agency of Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) has been using a threshold of $50,000 (CAD) per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) for both oncology and non-oncology drugs. When used for oncology products, this threshold is hypothesized to have a higher impact on the time to access these drugs in Canada. We studied the impact of price reductions on time to engagement and negotiation with the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance for oncology drugs reviewed by CADTH between January 2020 and December 2022. Overall, 103 assessments reported data on price reductions recommended by CADTH to meet the cost-effectiveness threshold for reimbursement. Of these assessments, 57% (59/103) recommendations included a price reduction of greater than 70% off the list price. Eight percent (8/103) were not cost-effective even at a 100% price reduction. Of the 47 assessments that had a clear benefit, in 21 (45%) CADTH recommended a price reduction of at least 70%. The median time to price negotiation (not including time to engagement) for assessments that received at least 70% vs >70% price reduction was 2.6 vs 4.8 months. This study showed that there is a divergence between drug sponsor's incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) and CADTH revised ICER leading to a price reduction to meet the $50,000/QALY threshold. For the submissions with clear clinical benefit the median length of engagement (2.5 vs 3.3 months) and median length of negotiation (3.1 vs 3.6 months) were slightly shorter compared with the submissions where uncertainties were noted in the clinical benefit according to CADTH. This study shows that using a $50,000 per QALY threshold for oncology products potentially impacts timely access to life saving medications.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:13

Enthalten in:

Journal of comparative effectiveness research - 13(2024), 5 vom: 17. Apr., Seite e230178

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Balijepalli, Chakrapani [VerfasserIn]
Gullapalli, Lakshmi [VerfasserIn]
Joshy, Juhi [VerfasserIn]
Rawson, Nigel Sb [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Antineoplastic Agents
CADTH
Cost–effectiveness
HTA
Journal Article
Oncology
QALY
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 23.04.2024

Date Revised 26.04.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.57264/cer-2023-0178

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM370573951