Quality-adjusted life year

• The study's authors conclude that, from a healthcare payer perspective, AspyreRx plus standard of care (SoC) was estimated to be both economically and clinically superior to SoC alone over the lifetime horizon.
• This suggests that the use of AspyreRx can empower patients to better manage their diabetes with the potential for lifelong advantages.
• This latest study modeled the cost-effectiveness of AspyreRx plus SoC versus SoC alone in T2D over a lifetime horizon.
• "The publication of this data, demonstrating that adding AspyreRx to standard of care has the potential to be more effective and less costly than standard of care alone, exemplifies our vision to make societies healthier and meaningfully reduce healthcare costs.”

• The analysis, which was presented at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Nexus 2023 conference in Orlando, Fla., suggests that adding ibalizumab to routine clinical care may provide payers with a cost-effective treatment option that can substantially improve outcomes for HTE individuals with HIV.
• The analysis encompassed numerous costs, including those for treatment acquisition and administration, monitoring, adverse events, opportunistic infections, and terminal care.
• Mortality assumptions and health-state utility values were based on disease-specific published literature and clinical trial data.
• Over a lifetime horizon, the addition of ibalizumab to OBR increased the time patients’ HIV remained undetectable (less than 50 copies/ml) or suppressed (between 50 and 200 copies/ml).

• The analysis, titled “Cost-Effectiveness of Ropeginterferon Alfa-2b-njft for the Treatment of Polycythemia Vera,” showed that ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft provided a cost-effective benefit for a broad range of patients with polycythemia vera (PV) versus first-line hydroxyurea followed by ruxolitinib.
• Cost effectiveness was demonstrated in a modeled population including both low- and high-risk patients receiving first- or second-line treatment with ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft.
• Findings from the study conclude ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft is a cost-effective treatment option for a broad range of patients with PV, including both low- and high-risk patients and patients with and without prior cytoreductive treatment with hydroxyurea.
• “Ropeginterferon alfa-2b-njft has demonstrated safety and efficacy in studies including both low- and high-risk patients and patients with and without prior cytoreductive treatment with HU.

• In a new study we’ve attempted to quantify how the COVID pandemic has affected global health using an international survey of the general public.
• Health economists often quantify health using a metric known as the quality-adjusted life year (QALY).
• The idea is to assign a value to each year of a person’s life based on their overall health.
• To ascertain how people thought the pandemic had affected them, we asked them to rate their current health compared with a year before.

What we found

• Anxiety and depression was the aspect of health that worsened the most, especially for younger people (aged under 35) and women.
• Translating the health reductions into a QALY measure indicated that during the pandemic perceived health was around 8% lower on average.
• Similarly, some countries offered economic support to those in financial difficulties, which may have positively impacted their mental wellbeing.
• QALYs provide a way of quantifying the trade-offs that exist between the positive and negative effects of different strategies.

Lessons for future pandemics

• Measuring multiple aspects of health through QALYs would also be a useful supplement to existing measures focusing on cases and deaths.
• Moving beyond counting deaths to understanding the overall health of the population globally can help us to be better prepared for potential future health shocks.
• The view expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the EuroQol Research Foundation.