A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Atezolizumab and Bevacizumab Verses Sorafenib in Patients With Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Abstract Background: Several studies have evaluated the cost-effectiveness of treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the economics of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (Ate plus Beva) remains unclear. Method: A three-state Markov model was established to simulate the life-time cost and effectiveness of advanced liver cancer, which included costs and health outcomes. Medical costs were sourced from Red Book, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) and literatures. Also, the utility values of health state were deprived from references. The primary outcomes were measured by life-years (LYs), quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), incremental cost-benefit ratio (ICER) and incremental net-health benefit (INHB). The robustness of the model was verified by one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analysis.Results: Ate plus Beva generated a gain of 0.84 QALYs (1.17 LYs ), an additional incremental cost of $242,447.40 per patient as compared with sorafenib, which resulted in the ICER of $288,663.09/QALY ($206,906.76/LY) at the willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $150,000/QALY, and the INHB was -0.78/QALY. The sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the ICER was most affected by the price of atezolizumab.Conclusion: From the U.S. health care payer perspective, compare with sorafenib, Ate plus Beva regimen seems unlikely to be cost-effective in advanced HCC patients at a WTP threshold of 150,000 /QALY. If the price of atezolizumab was reduced by 75%, the probability of atezolizumab being cost-effective was over 50% at the WTP threshold.