A cost comparison of benralizumab, mepolizumab, and dupilumab in patients with severe asthma: A US third-party payer perspective.

BACKGROUND: Clinical trials and real-world evidence (RWE) studies of biologics have demonstrated reduced exacerbations, decreased use of oral corticosteroids (OCS), and improvements in daily symptoms and health-related quality of life in patients with severe eosinophilic asthma (SEA). OBJECTIVE: To compare direct health care costs associated with biologic use for the treatment of SEA from a US third-party payer perspective. METHODS: We developed a cost-minimization model to compare costs and cost offsets associated with 3 biologics-benralizumab, mepolizumab, and dupilumab-for 2- and 4-year periods. The model relied on longitudinal data from clinical trials to inform the primary (base case) analysis cost comparison and RWE study data, in a separate scenario, to compare costs in nonclinical trial settings. Primary model outcomes included exacerbations (including hospitalizations), OCS-dependent years (including associated complications), and total direct health care biologic costs. Results were calculated at the per patient and population level (per 1,000 patients). Sensitivity analyses with key model parameters were performed. RESULTS: Benralizumab had the lowest total biologic costs per patient for both the 2- and 4-year periods. Over 4 years, the marginal cost difference in total biologic costs per patient was $23,061 lower for benralizumab vs mepolizumab and $17,242 lower for benralizumab vs dupilumab. The 4-year population level analysis of benralizumab vs mepolizumab revealed $4.8 million in marginal cost offsets due to 582 fewer exacerbations and 153 fewer OCS-dependent years and a marginal total cost savings of $27.9 million per 1,000 patients for benralizumab. The 4-year population level analysis of benralizumab vs dupilumab revealed $2.3 million in marginal cost offsets due to 291 fewer exacerbations and 64 fewer OCS-dependent years and marginal total cost savings of $19.5 million per 1,000 patients for benralizumab. RWE data were available for a 2-year cost comparison scenario of benralizumab vs mepolizumab, which showed similar results to the base case analysis. Sensitivity analyses varying assumptions on key model parameter estimates confirmed results, with benralizumab having lower total direct health care costs in all scenarios tested, and showed that model results were most sensitive to changes in biologic costs and exacerbation reduction rates. CONCLUSIONS: Patients receiving benralizumab had higher nonbiologic cost offsets because of reductions in exacerbations and OCS-dependent years, leading to greater cost savings for third-party payers compared with patients receiving mepolizumab or dupilumab. Taken together with biologic costs, benralizumab presents greater savings in health care costs for payers than patients with SEA who use mepolizumab or dupilumab. DISCLOSURES: This study was funded by AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK). Drs Xu, Chung, Genofre, and Katial are or were AstraZeneca employees at the time this research was conducted and may be shareholders of AstraZeneca. Ms Schaefer and Dr Szende are employees of Labcorp Drug Development, which received funding from AstraZeneca to perform this research.