Clinical Benefits and Budget Impact of Lenzilumab plus Standard of Care Compared with Standard of Care Alone for the Treatment of Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19 in the United States from the Hospital Perspective (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Aims: The study estimated the clinical benefits and budget impact of lenzilumab plus standard of care (SOC) compared with SOC alone in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients from the United States hospital perspective. Materials and Methods: An economic model was developed to estimate the clinical benefits and costs for an average newly hospitalized COVID-19 patient, with a 28-day time horizon for the index hospitalization. Clinical outcomes from the LIVE-AIR trial included failure to achieve survival without ventilation (SWOV), mortality, time to recovery, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) use. Base case costs included drug acquisition and administration for lenzilumab and hospital resource costs based on the level of care required. The inclusion of 1-year rehospitalization costs was examined in a scenario analysis. Results: In the base case and all scenarios, treatment with lenzilumab plus SOC improved all specified clinical outcomes over SOC alone. Adding lenzilumab to SOC was also estimated to result in cost savings of $3,190 per patient in a population aged <85 years with CRP <150 mg/L and receiving remdesivir (base case). Per-patient cost savings were also estimated in the following scenarios 1) aged <85 years with CRP <150 mg/L, with or without remdesivir ($1,858); 2) Black and African American patients with CRP <150 mg/L ($13,154); and 3) Black and African American patients from the full population ($2,763). In the full mITT population, a budget impact of $4,952 was estimated. When adding rehospitalization costs to the index hospitalization, a total per-patient cost savings of $5,154 was estimated. Conclusions: The results highlight the clinical benefits for SWOV, ventilator use, time to recovery, mortality, time in ICU, and time on IMV, in addition to a favorable budget impact from the United States hospital perspective associated with adding lenzilumab to SOC for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia.