Cost-Effectiveness of Tafamidis Therapy for Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy
Authors: Kazi Dhruv S. , Bellows Brandon K. , Baron Suzanne J. , Shen Changyu , Cohen David J. , Spertus John A. , Yeh Robert W. , Arnold Suzanne V. , Sperry Brett W. , Maurer Mathew S. , Shah Sanjiv J. 
Published: February 2020

Background:

In patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, tafamidis reduces all-cause mortality and cardiovascular hospitalizations and slows decline in quality of life compared with placebo. In May 2019, tafamidis received expedited approval from the US Food and Drug Administration as a breakthrough drug for a rare disease. However, at $225 000 per year, it is the most expensive cardiovascular drug ever launched in the United States, and its long-term cost-effectiveness and budget impact are uncertain. We therefore aimed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of tafamidis and its potential effect on US health care spending.

Methods:

We developed a Markov model of patients with wild-type or variant transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy and heart failure (mean age, 74.5 years) using inputs from the ATTR-ACT trial (Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiomyopathy Clinical Trial), published literature, US Food and Drug Administration review documents, healthcare claims, and national survey data. We compared no disease–specific treatment (“usual care”) with tafamidis therapy. The model reproduced 30-month survival, quality of life, and cardiovascular hospitalization rates observed in ATTR-ACT; future projections used a parametric survival model in the control arm, with constant hazards reduction in the tafamidis arm. We discounted future costs and quality-adjusted life-years by 3% annually and examined key parameter uncertainty using deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. The main outcomes were lifetime incremental cost-effectiveness ratio and annual budget impact, assessed from the US healthcare sector perspective. This study was independent of the ATTR-ACT trial sponsor.

Results:

Compared with usual care, tafamidis was projected to add 1.29 (95% uncertainty interval, 0.47–1.75) quality-adjusted life-years at an incremental cost of $1 135 000 (872 000–1 377 000), resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $880 000 (697 000–1 564 000) per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Assuming a threshold of $100 000 per quality-adjusted life-year gained and current drug price, tafamidis was cost-effective in 0% of 10 000 probabilistic simulations. A 92.6% price reduction from $225 000 to $16 563 would be necessary to make tafamidis cost-effective at $100 000/quality-adjusted life-year. Results were sensitive to assumptions related to long-term effectiveness of tafamidis. Treating all eligible patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy in the United States with tafamidis (n=120 000) was estimated to increase annual healthcare spending by $32.3 billion.

Conclusions:

Treatment with tafamidis is projected to produce substantial clinical benefit but would greatly exceed conventional cost-effectiveness thresholds at the current US list price. On the basis of recent US experience with high-cost cardiovascular medications, access to and uptake of this effective therapy may be limited unless there is a large reduction in drug costs.