Studies from Yonsei University Have Provided New Information about Monoclonal Antibodies (Cost-utility Analysis of Emicizumab Prophylaxis In Haemophilia a Patients With Factor Viii Inhibitors In Korea)

2020 SEP 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Immunotherapy Daily -- New research on Drugs and Therapies - Monoclonal Antibodies is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Incheon, South Korea, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Haemophilia A patients with factor VIII inhibitors (HAPI) experience frequent spontaneous bleeding, approximately once a week, and require expensive bypassing agent (BPA) treatments to control bleeding over their lifetime. According to the HAVEN 1 trial, weekly emicizumab (Hemlibra ®) prophylaxis injection reduces annualized bleeding rates (ABR) by 87% compared with BPA on-demand treatment (BPA-OD) administered at the time of bleeding.”

Financial support for this research came from JW Pharmaceuticals.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Yonsei University, “Our study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of emicizumab prophylaxis in HAPI in Korea. Using a lifetime Markov model with health states of ‘alive with bleeds’ and ‘dead’, we simulated the experience of HAPI receiving emicizumab prophylaxis (treatment arm) or BPA-OD (control arm) and estimated expected clinical and economic outcomes under each treatment arm. Model parameters included comparative effectiveness, clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of Korean HAPI, costs of drug treatment and medical events and utility for ‘alive with bleeds’ state under each treatment. We utilized local data, including National Health Insurance claims data, national statistics, literature and expert surveys with haematologists. Base-case analysis results showed that compared with BPA-OD, lifetime emicizumab prophylaxis prevented 807 bleedings, extended 3.04 quality-adjusted life-years and reduced costs by 2.6 million US dollars. Thus, emicizumab prophylaxis is a dominant treatment option with better effectiveness and lower costs than BPA-OD. A series of one-way sensitivity analyses consistently showed dominant results, confirming that lifetime emicizumab prophylaxis is a cost-saving intervention for HAPI.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Emicizumab prophylaxis is an excellent treatment choice reducing ABR, improving quality of life and reducing costs.”

For more information on this research see: Cost-utility Analysis of Emicizumab Prophylaxis In Haemophilia a Patients With Factor Viii Inhibitors In Korea. Haemophilia, 2020;():. Haemophilia can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; Haemophilia - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2516)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Hye-Young Kang, Yonsei University, Yonsei Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, 85 Songdogwahak Ro, Incheon 21983, South Korea. Additional authors for this research include Hankil Lee, Hyeonseok Cho, Deborah Baik, Jung Woo Han, Ah-Young Kim, Seonyoung Park, Minjun Lee and Sunghwa Cho.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1111/hae.14143. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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