Cost Effectiveness of Long-Acting Risperidone in Sweden

Abstract

Treatment with RLAI is suggested to result in improved QALYs combined with cost savings compared with haloperidol LAI among the Swedish, high-risk non-compliant schizophrenia patient population. In the general schizophrenia population, RLAI also resulted in positive incremental QALYs and cost savings, when compared with olanzapine. However, the estimates used in the model for compliance and symptom reduction need further validation through naturalistic-based studies with reasonable follow-up to more definitely establish the real-life differences between RLAI and the comparators in the considered patient populations and to further reduce the uncertainty of these parameters.

Can authorities take advantage of the availability of generic atypical antipsychotic drugs? Findings from Sweden and potential implications

“…Alongside this, there is patent protection only until 2014 and ongoing concerns regarding the increased efficiency of LARI in practice versus oral risperidone . This is because most published studies with LARIs are open label and subject to sponsor bias and a number of independent randomised and observational studies have shown no benefit versus oral treatments . However, other studies have shown the opposite with reduced re‐hospitalisation with LARI versus oral risperidone .…”

A Review of Clinical and Economic Evaluations Applied to Psychotropic Therapies Used in the Treatment of Schizophrenia in Argentina

“…A study performed in Taiwan by Yang et al [ 38 ] using the Kaplan–Meier method also showed that LAIR is more cost effective than haloperidol administered via depot intramuscular injections. On the other hand, a scientific study performed in Sweden by Hensen et al [ 39 ] found that treatment with LAIR produces an improvement in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), alongside long-term savings in relation to haloperidol depot. Together with olanzapine, risperidone is one of the most used second-generation antipsychotics in the UK, and has proven to be the most cost effective; it is expected that this tendency will become worldwide in the following years [ 40 ].…”

Acknowledging Patient Heterogeneity in Economic Evaluations in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review

“…Another study varied treatment location (eg, hospital) by whether a patient could take care of themselves (based on PANSS score and a random score for social and environmental factors representing a patients' informal care network) but did not justify this. 29 One trial controlled for whether participants considered themselves to have a mental health problem. 30…”

“…There were some further examples of studies acknowledging patient heterogeneity that were not standard subgroup analyses. Henson et al 29 considered a scenario with a general population rather than the high-risk noncompliant group modeled in the base case; nevertheless, this scenario had a different comparator. Peng et al 58 considered patient heterogeneity in their research question by comparing treating (with antipsychotic drugs) early responders with early nonresponders and maintenance therapy with treatment switching for nonresponders.…”