We previously reported a recent technology appraisal relating to the use of abatacept (Orencia) for rheumatoid arthritis after conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) have failed. And struggled to find the updated analyses on the NICE website . Our thanks to a reader, who tracked the report down. Written by Matt Stephenson (HEDS), it concludes that:
“The results produced by the ERG indicate that assuming a threshold of £30,000 per QALY certolizumab pegol appears to be the most cost-effective intervention. Whilst abatacept is not expected to be on the efficiency frontier, it has an ICER compared with cDMARDs that is similar to other treatments recommended by NICE. Furthermore, abatacept is expected to have a cost per QALY gained ratio of less than £30,000 or a cost per QALY yielded ratio of more than £30,000 when compared with all interventions excluding certolizumab pegol. This conclusion held regardless of whether the Bansback et al or Hurst et al utility was assumed.”
Did NICE interpret this as “if we accept a higher threshold for RA, it’s about the same as the rest, so ‘yes’”?
