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PLOS One logoLink to PLOS One
. 2024 Feb 1;19(2):e0298130. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298130

Cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib maintenance therapy for BRCA mutation ovarian cancer in the public sector in Malaysia

Chee Meng Yong 1, Prathepamalar A P Yehgambaram 2, Shaun Wen Huey Lee 3,*
Editor: Alvaro Galli4
PMCID: PMC10833573  PMID: 38300930

Abstract

Introduction

Ovarian cancer is one of the most common cancer among women in Malaysia. Patients with ovarian cancer are often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Despite initial response to surgery and chemotherapy, most patients will experience a relapse. Olaparib has been reported have promising effects among BRCA mutated ovarian cancer patients. This study aimed to evaluate the cost–effectiveness of olaparib as a maintenance therapy for BRCA ovarian cancer in Malaysia.

Methods

We developed a four-state partitioned survival model which compared treatment with olaparib versus routine surveillance (RS) from a Malaysian healthcare perspective. Mature overall survival (OS) data from the SOLO-1 study were used and extrapolated using parametric models. Medication costs and healthcare resource usage costs were derived from local inputs and publications. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses (PSA) were performed to explore uncertainties.

Results

In Malaysia, treating patients with olaparib was found to be more costly compared to RS, with an incremental cost of RM149,858 (USD 33,213). Patients treated with olaparib increased life years by 3.05 years and increased quality adjusted life years (QALY) by 2.76 (9.45 years vs 6.40 years; 7.62 vs 4.86 QALY). This translated to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of RM 49,159 (USD10,895) per life year gained and RM54,357 (USD 12,047) per QALY gained, respectively. ICERs were most sensitive to time horizon of treatment, discount rate for outcomes, cost of treatment and health state costs, but was above the RM53,770/QALY threshold.

Conclusion

The use of olaparib is currently not a cost-effective strategy compared to routine surveillance based upon the current price in Malaysia for people with ovarian cancer with BRCA mutation, despite the improvement in overall survival.

Introduction

Cancer is a major public health issue globally, and is a leading cause of death, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 [1]. Importantly, in women, ovarian cancer is now the leading cause of mortality in those diagnosed with gynaecological cancer, and accounts for nearly 4% of all reported new cases diagnosed in 2020. Among the risk factors associated with ovarian cancer include increasing age, family history of breast cancer as well as smoking [2]. While early cancer detection using transvaginal ultrasound and the cancer antigen-125 (CA-125) are important strategies, they have very low predictive values [3].

In people with ovarian cancer, the current standard of care includes surgery and platinum-based chemotherapy. Nevertheless, approximately 15–20% of patients experience disease progression after completing therapy or fail to respond to therapy [4]. In addition, nearly 70% of women with advanced ovarian cancer will relapse within the next 36 months after diagnosis despite the absence of residual disease and require treatment with further courses of chemotherapy [5]. Recently, the anti-angiogenic VEGF inhibitor bevacizumab and Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors have gained momentum in the management of ovarian cancer [4].

Among these, the PARP inhibitors have reported some encouraging findings in patients with ovarian cancer. Examples of PARP inhibitors include olaparib, niraparib, rucaparib as well as veliparib, of which the first three have been shown to have promising anticancer activities in BRCA mutated patients. Olaparib monotherapy was approved for first-line maintenance therapy of BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer based upon the SOLO-1 study [6]. The primary study showed that after a median follow-up of 41 months, there was a reduction in disease progression or death by 70% in the olaparib treated group (hazard ratio (HR): 0.30; 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.41). This was confirmed in the recent updated SOLO-1 study which reported that 67.0% of olaparib-treated participants were alive 7 years after randomisation compared to 46.5% among those treated with placebo [7].

Two other PARP inhibitors were subsequently approved, namely niraparib and rucaparib. In the PRIMA study, patients randomised to niraparib or placebo for 36 months or until disease progression [8]. The study found that median PFS was longer with niraparib maintenance compared to placebo (13.8 vs 8.2 months), with larger benefits among those whose tumour tested positive for HRD. The ATHENA-MONO study where patients received either rucaparib or placebo for up to 24 months or until disease progressed reported a longer PFS among those receiving rucaparib therapy (20.2 vs 9.2 months) [9]. Taken together, these results suggest that all three PARP inhibitors improved PFS and can provide benefits when used in first-line settings.

Recently updated data on SOLO-2 also found that olaparib significantly prolonged the median overall survival (OS), with a median of 51.7 months compared to 38.8 months in the placebo group [10]. Results further suggest that olaparib can provide a beneficial extension of OS in patients for platinum sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer with BRCA mutation. Despite the clinical promise of this strategy, costs are a substantial barrier to treatment accessibility especially in low-middle income countries (LMICs) as cancer diagnosis and treatment impose a high financial burden [11,12]. Cost-effectiveness analyses have been suggested as one of the methods to assess the benefits of treatment compared to its costs. Several studies to date have examined the cost-effectiveness of introducing olaparib in patients with ovarian cancer, with varied results. For example, in a study by Shu and colleagues in China, the authors found that while olaparib led to an increase in quality adjusted life-years (QALY), the incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) was $77,620.56/QALY, which is above what would be considered cost-effective [13]. In contrast, another similar study in Singapore, Tan et al found that olaparib maintenance therapy was cost-effective, with an ICER of SGD 19,822/QALY, especially among those with BRCA mutations [14].

Potential reasons for these discrepancies include the evaluations of the economic costs of cancer, which can vary across countries and settings based on local disease burden, healthcare resources availability, access to care utilization and outcomes data, as well as healthcare practices [1517]. Currently, little is known about the economic impact of introducing olaparib maintenance therapy for women with ovarian cancer in Malaysia. This study aims to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of olaparib as a maintenance therapy following response to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, which can be used to inform future reimbursement decision in Malaysia.

Methods

This study was performed from January to May 2023 in accordance with the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards 2022 (CHEERS 2022) statement [18]. No ethical approval was sought since publicly available information was used.

Decision model structure

A hypothetical four state partitioned survival with 1-month cycle, with a half-cycle correction was developed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of two management strategies, treatment with olaparib or routine surveillance in women with ovarian cancer. The mutually exclusive health states included: progression free state (PF), which can then transition to progressed disease 1 (PD1, post first progression) state, progressed disease 2 (PD2, post second progression) state and death from any cause (Fig 1). This 4-state model was chosen given that it mimicked the treatment patterns and disease progressions for advanced ovarian cancer in Malaysia and the region [14]. The model was developed on Microsoft Excel 2016 (Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA) based upon the perspective of the Malaysian healthcare system.

Fig 1. Markov model structure used in the current study which simulated the four health states: Progression-free survival (PFS), post first progression (PD1), post second progression (PD2) or death.

Fig 1

In the current study, all patients entered the model in the PF state, and would receive either olaparib or routine surveillance. These patients are at risk of progression (PD1), die or could remain in the PF state. For patients who are in the PD1 state, olaparib was discontinued and patients would receive chemotherapy treatment before undergoing active surveillance and/or palliative care. Patients could subsequently stay in the PD1 state, transition into the PD2 state or die.. Patients were assumed to stay in the PD state (either PD1 or PD2) for the remaining time horizon until they died.

To obtain the health state membership in PD1 and PD2 at each time point, this was determined directly from OS curves. The PF health state was estimated from PFS curves. For instance, the proportion of patients without progression were equal to the area under the PFS1 curve. To obtain the proportion of patients post first-progression (PD1), this was calculated as the difference in the areas under the PFS2 and PFS1 curves. A similar approach was taken to obtain the proportion of patients post second-progression (PD2), where the difference in the area under the OS curve and the PFS2 curve was used (See S1 Table). These information was then used in the model to project the outcomes and costs for patients with ovarian cancer (Fig 1).

In the current study, a 28-year time horizon was considered sufficient in the base case to capture most of the survival benefits and costs accrued in the olaparib arm, given that the 10-year survival rate for patients with advanced ovarian cancer is approximately 35%, taking into account the average Malaysian women lifespan [19,20].

Model inputs

Clinical data

Clinical inputs for the model were derived from SOLO-1 trial, which compared olaparib tablets with placebo after completing at platinum-based chemotherapy regimen [6]. Due to the lack of patient-level data, the PFS estimates were based upon the Kaplan-Meier (KM) estimates for the first 24 months. However, diagnostic plots indicated that the proportional hazards assumption was violated for all other timepoints beyond 24 months. To address this, we adopted an independent ‘piecewise’ model approach, where standard parametric survival distributions (including exponential, Weibull, log-logistic, log-normal, Gompertz, and generalized gamma) were used to fit onto each Kaplan-Meier curve beyond the 24-month inflexion point. Based upon the goodness-of-fit statistics (Akaike Information Criterion, AIC) as well as visual inspection of the curves, and clinical opinion, the most appropriate distributions for the extrapolation was selected. Similar to PFS, the OS estimates for olaparib during the first 24 months were based on the KM estimates from SOLO-1 study. As such, we used a similar approach as described above to determine the OS estimates beyond 24 months (S1 Table).

Adverse events

The current model only considered the disutility and cost impact related to those of grade 3 to 5 adverse events (AEs) since it was associated with significant costs, requires longer hospitalisation and impacts quality of life. Specifically, only AEs with a frequency of ≥5% from SOLO1 were included in the model (Table 1).

Table 1. Modelled characteristics and costs imputed into the model.
Parameter Value Reference
Age, years (standard error) 54.2 (5.4) Local clinical expert opinion
Direct medical cost, RM (USD)
 Consultation (office visit) 100.00 (22.16) Malaysian Government Scheduled fees[21]
 Blood count 40.00 (8.87)
 Liver function test 100.00 (22.16)
 Renal profile 80.00 (17.73)
 CA125 tumour marker 75.00 (16.62)
 Chest computer tomography 675.00 (149.60)
 Olaparib (per month) 13818.63 (3062.50) IMS data
 Subsequent-line platinum chemotherapy (per cycle) 714.33 (158.32) IMS data
 Subsequent-line non- platinum chemotherapy (per cycle) 14027.76 (3108.99) IMS data
 Intravenous drug administration (per administration) 400.00 (88.65) Malaysian Government Scheduled fees[21]
 BRCA1/2 test (per patient) 2000.00 (443.26) Local clinical expert
 Anaemia management 4700.11 (1041.69) Azmi 2018 [22]
 Neutropenia management 3203.04 (709.89) Ariffin 2001[23]
 Diarrhoea management 258.85 (57.37) Loganathan 2015 [24]
 Hospice care (per event) 2000.00 (443.26) Local clinical expert
Health state utility
 Progression free 0.82 SOLO1 trial [25]
 1st progressive disease 0.77 SOLO1 trial [25]
 2nd progressive disease 0.68 NICE TA381 [26]

Health state utilities

Due to the absence of locally available data, the utility values for PFS and PD1 states were derived from SOLO-1 study [6], while PD2 were obtained from utility data of patients that progressed after treatment with olaparib in a platinum sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer [26]. Any reduction in utility due to AEs was calculated as a weighted sum of the utility associated with the included AEs. The weights were the reported frequencies of the AEs in the corresponding arm in SOLO-1.

Resource utilization and costs

All costs were considered from a Malaysian health care perspective, and only direct costs were considered. Costs included in the model are those associated with drug acquisition, administration, monitoring, and adverse effect based upon the Malaysian Government Scheduled fees [21]. All drug costs included in the model reflects the discount and any rebates given, based upon the negotiated prices for the public sector. The healthcare resources include office visits, blood count, and computed tomography (CT) scans, based upon clinical guidelines and clinical input. The model assumes different resource use rates for all stages, reflecting clinical practice. Similarly, the cost of testing for BRCA was accounted for as a one-off cost for all patients receiving olaparib, assuming a 13.9% BRCA positive rate [27].

A dose of 600mg/day olaparib was used in the model based upon data from SOLO-1, with a maximum duration of 2 years before olaparib was stopped. Since olaparib was orally administered, no administration cost was considered in the model. The proportion of patients receiving olaparib over time was determined based upon the PFS curve for time to discontinuation or death in SOLO-1 study. Women who have disease progressed will then receive subsequent treatment, which includes a mixture of platinum and non-platinum chemotherapy regimens, which was identified through local clinical expert survey. For each chemotherapy cycle, the cost of consultation, blood counts and administration cost were accounted for. All patients with chemotherapy was assumed to receive 6 cycles of treatment (S2 Table). The utilization of each chemotherapy regimen can be found in S3 Table.

The proportion of women transitioning from first-line maintenance therapy to second-line subsequent therapy was obtained from SOLO-1. For women who transition to death, they were assumed to incur a one-time cost associated with palliative care, and assumed to be the same across arms [28]. All costs were adjusted to 2022 prices based upon the consumer price index [29].

Outcomes

The outcomes of interest were costs, overall life years (LYs), progression-free life years (PFLYs), quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). All costs were discounted at 3% per annum.

Sensitivity analyses

We conducted 1-way deterministic sensitivity analyses on key model parameters to investigate the impact of each parameter and to account for the uncertainties. The key parameters varied are listed in S4 Table. Whenever possible, we used the standard error of the selected parameter based upon the data source used to inform the mean values. In the event these are unavailable, we varied them by 20% of the mean values. These parameters were tested individually to determine the impact based upon the recommended willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of one-GDP of Malaysia in 2022 (RM53,043/QALY or USD 11,756; assuming 1USD = RM4.512) [30,31]. A probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) was also conducted using 1,000 Monte Carlo simulation to assess the uncertainty in model input with the base-case results.

Results

Base case analysis

Over a 28-year time horizon, treating women with ovarian cancner wih olaparib was more costly compared to routine surveillance. Women receiving olaparib incurred an additional incremental cost of RM 149,858 (USD 33,213) compared to routine surveillance. This was mainly due to drug acquisition cost of olaparib, accounting for the majority of incremental costs (RM 280,673; USD 62,206), but this costs was offset by savings from subsequent management costs (RM 147,234; USD 32,632). Patients on olaparib lived 9.45 years compared to 6.40 years for those with routine surveillance, as they had a longer progression-free life years of 5.00 and 4.10 progression-free QALY. This led to greater life-year of 3.05 and incremental QALY of 2.76 compared to routine surveillance, which translated to an ICER of RM 49,159 (USD 10,895) per LY gained and RM 54,357 (USD 12,047) per QALY gained (Table 2).

Table 2. Results of the cost-effectiveness study.

Olaparib Standard of care Difference
Effectiveness
Total LYS 9.45 6.41 3.05
 Progression free survival 8.08 3.08 5.00
 Period until first progression 0.55 1.70 -1.14
 Period until second progression 0.82 1.63 -0.81
Total QALYs 7.62 4.86 2.76
 Progression free survival 6.63 2.53 4.10
 Period until first progression 0.43 1.22 -0.79
 Period until second progression 0.56 1.11 -0.55
Cost, RM (USD)
 Total cost of first-line maintenance treatment and subsequent therapies 326,638 (72,393) 193,200 (42,819) 133,439 (29,574)
 Cost of PFS state (first 2 years) 5,234 (1,160) 2,156 (478) 3,078 (682)
 Cost of PFS state (subsequent years) 4,159 (922) 1,529 (339) 2,630 (583)
 Cost of PD1 state 1,348 (299) 3,862 (856) - 2,514 (-557)
 Cost of PD2 state 2,000 (443) 3,981 (882) - 1,981 (-439)
 Cost of terminal disease 649 (144) 833 (185) - 184 (-41)
 Cost of adverse events 1,162 (258) 171 (38) 992 (220)
 Cost of BRCA testing 14,400 (3191) 0 (0) 14,400 (3191)
ICERS
 Incremental cost per QALY gained (RM/QALY) 54,357 (12,047)
 Incremental cost per LY gained (RM/LY) 49,159 (10,895)

Assumes 1USD = RM4.512.

OS: Overall survival; PF: Progression free; PD1:, Post first progression; PD2:, Post second progression; ICER: Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio.

Sensitivity analyses

One-way sensitivity analyses showed that ICER values were most sensitive to the time horizon of treatment, discount rate for outcomes, cost of treatment as well as health state costs (Fig 2). ICER values ranged between RM 35,578 (USD 7,885) to RM76,007 (USD 16,846) when parameters were varied over the range of possible values assumed. The range remained above the RM 53,770 per QALY gained for olaparib compared to routine surveillance in most instances, except when the cost of olaparib was reduced, or when disease progressed slower in those treated with olaparib. The results of the ICER values when various parameters were varied are shown in S5 Table.

Fig 2. One-way deterministic sensitivity analysis showing the 10 parameters which the model was most sensitive.

Fig 2

Probabilistic sensitivity analyses with 1000 simulated patients found that olaparib remained congruent with the deterministic analysis results, which found that olaparib was a more costly strategy. The use of olaparib was estimated to increase quality-adjusted life years by 2.62 (95% credible interval (CrI): 0.77 to 4.18) and life-years by 2.87 (0.35 to 4.96). The mean probabilistic ICER was RM 50,054 per LY gained and RM 54,815 (USD 12,149) per QALY gained. Scatterplot showed that over 99% of the iterations were within the north-east quadrant, suggesting that olaparib use was more effective but more costly than usual care. In particular, at a willingness-to-pay threshold of RM53,043 olaparib had a 46% chance of being cost effective versus routine surveillance (Fig 3).

Fig 3. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis: Cost effectiveness plane.

Fig 3

Discussion

The use of PARPis have been recently shown to be effective in delaying the progression of ovarian cancer. Among them, olaparib could prolonged PFS of those with BRCA mutant ovarian cancer patients. Given this clinical promise, we undertook a cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate the economic impact of using olaparib. In our cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib compared to routine surveillance in Malaysia, treatment with olaparib substantially improves the overall PFS by 5.00 years, life-years by 3.05 years and quality-adjusted life years by 2.78. These results are in-line with the recent results reported in the SOLO1 trial, which showed that maintenance therapy with olaparib can improve the long-term overall survival of patients. Importantly, despite treatment with olaparib capped at 2 years, many patients continue to experience benefits beyond this point [10,25].

However, our analyses showed that olaparib was not likely to be a cost-effective strategy for women with ovarian cancer at the current price from Malaysia’s context, as it was above the Malaysian threshold of cost-effectiveness, which suggested that the value should be below one GDP. Results of the one-way sensitivity analysis showed that the ICER was highly sensitive to the cost of olaparib. Overall, the findings suggest that a reduction in the cost of olaparib is needed to be a cost-effective treatment in Malaysia. Nevertheless, this needs to be taken into context the substantial improvements in QALY and LYs relative to current practice. Indeed, as shown in the SOLO1 trial, treatment with olaparib was shown to provide significant benefits beyond the 2 years treatment period. Results of our study closely mimic the study by Muston and colleagues in the United States which found that the use of olaparib compared to routine surveillance in US increases both the LYs and QALYs of women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer and with a germline or somatic BRCA mutation [32].

This study offers several strengths. This is the first economic analysis conducted to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of olaparib maintenance therapy versus placebo in ovarian cancer patients with BRCA mutations in Malaysia. Our study showed that the use of olaparib increased cost by RM150,197 compared to routine surveillance, which is above the proposed willingness-to-ratio of RM47,600 in Malaysia. Another strength of our study is that the study was informed by the latest results from the SOLO1 study [25], which further lends credibility to our model. In addition, our model uses locally derived data such as the life-table whenever possible.

Nevertheless, there are several limitations to our study. As with most studies, we extrapolated the survival data beyond the follow-up duration of the trial, which may not accurately reflect the real-world condition. However, feedback from our key experts suggest that the survival model mimics the real-world experience at their setting, which provides some validation of our results. Nevertheless, the model uncertainty rates were relatively small based on the goodness of fit model. In addition, our model did not evaluate the impact of using different chemotherapies used, as the effects were unavailable. Like most other cost-effectiveness analysis, we had made several assumptions based upon the SOLO1 study which may introduce inconsistencies between treatment cost and their effects. Finally, our model only considered cost related to grade 3 or 4 adverse events, which were more likely to be costly. Finally, we used utility scores of those derived from the SOLO1 study and literature review as these values were unavailable for Malaysia.

Conclusion

The use of olaparib as a maintenance therapy is currently not a cost-effective strategy compared to standard of care which is routine surveillance in Malaysia, especially among those with BRCA mutation using a threshold of RM53,043/QALY. However, given that olaparib improves QALY and LYs, it may be important to reevaluate the cost-effectiveness of olaparib in the future

Supporting information

S1 Checklist. CHEERS 2022 checklist.

(DOCX)

S1 Table. The rate of transition used in the model.

(DOCX)

S2 Table. List of subsequent line anticancer regimens used in the model.

(DOCX)

S3 Table. Resource utilization for subsequent therapies.

(DOCX)

S4 Table. Parameters included in the deterministic and probabilistic analysis and their distribution.

(DOCX)

S5 Table. Results of deterministic sensitivity analyses conducted in this study.

(DOCX)

Data Availability

The underlying data used for the model prediction was obtained from unpublished data of clinical studies funded by Astra Zeneca and currently are under embargo for publication. The full data can be requested from https://vivli.org/ourmember/astrazeneca/ via ExternalDataSharing@astrazeneca.com.

Funding Statement

SWHL- The study was funded by Astra Zeneca, The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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  • 31.Malaysian Health Technology Assessment Section. MaHTAS Newsletter Volume 17, Jan-June 2015.. 2015.
  • 32.Muston D., et al., Cost-effectiveness of olaparib as a maintenance treatment for women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer and BRCA1/2 mutations in the United States. Gynecol Oncol, 2020. 159(2): p. 491–497. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2020.08.013 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Decision Letter 0

Alvaro Galli

13 Nov 2023

PONE-D-23-29905Cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib maintenance therapy for BRCA mutation ovarian cancer in the public sector in MalaysiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lee,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Introduction

- The authors indicate that a number of PARPi's are available as first-line maintenance therapies. Why focus here on only olaparib?

- First sentence of para 4 is unclearly written. The relevance of data for olaparib in PSROC, a setting later than the one considered in this paper is unclear.

- Sentence 2 of para 5 requires a supporting reference. Suggested where?

Methods

- The rationale for this model structure is unclear. In this evaluation of olaparib, the authors cite structures from HTA evaluations of niraparib. This seems potentially disingenuous if HTA evaluations of olaparib, the subject of this paper, used a different structure. Certainly, Muston et al used 3 states, not 4 states as here [32]. Why use 4 states if others have used 3?

- Paragraph 3 explaining health state membership is rather unclear, compounded by Suppl Table 1. We are told this is a 4 state partitioned survival model with states of PF, PD1, PD2 and death. This structure requires survival modeling of PFS1, PFS2 and OS. The supplementary table provides other information that does not correspond with this. The parameter values should be reported. The textual description in the manuscript is rather unclear.

- 28 seems a curious number to pick for the time horizon (years). Why not 20, 25, 30 or 40? The time horizon may be missing from the OWSA.

- Health state utilities. Please confirm the references - some are included in Table 1, but not the text. What value sets / country do these relate to? Two sources are used, contrary to ISPOR guidelines because they may not be consistent. Why were niraparib utilities used?

- Table 1. What kind of drug cost is quoted in Table 1 for olaparib. 'IMS' is indicated as a reference, but no full reference is actually provided. Is this derived from a public list price? Or does this value already reflect discounts/rebates that may be available and be a net price? This is important to know in understanding the conclusion from this paper.

- Resource utilization information is missing from the section on resource utilization. The section describes what resources are assumed, but not how much of each. For example, what subsequent treatments were recommended in the clinician survey? How frequently are physician visits required?

- Sensitivity analyses. Why were only 'key' parameters varied? How was it pre-determined which parameters were 'key'? What is the difference between a PFS model and probability in this context? Was OS not varied? What statistical distributions were used for the PSA?

Results

- Sentence 2 is unclear as it contains two instances of 'which'.

- Sensitivity analyses, paragraph 2. Articles 'a' and 'the' are occasionally missing.

- What is the relevance of a WTP threshold of RM53,043? Is this a local standard? Please explain. Otherwise it is little surprise that about half of PSA simulations were above/below a value so close to the mean ICER.

- Total LYs and total QALYs should be added to Table 2.

Discussion

- What is a 'quality of life year' (line 6)? Is it related to QALY?

- Life years appear to increase by either 3.05 years (line 6) or 2.87 years (line 8). Which?

- Para 2 cites a slightly confusing mix of studies. The most relevant study here by treatment setting appears to be Muston [32], since this also evaluates olaparib in this same treatment setting (but in the US). It is questionable whether the others mentioned are truly 'similar studies' as claimed [10, 29-31] because they mostly appear in later PROC settings. One cannot easily compare CE of an agent between two different treatment settings - or the substantial difficulties with this should be acknowledged.

- The assumption of ToT=PFS (but capped at 2 years) may also be key to the results and should ideally be explored. What if ToT was longer/shorter than PFS?

Conclusion

- Not well worded. This suggests patients ('those') have a 53,043 (no units) /QALY threshold. 'The need' in sentence 2 is unclear.

Supplementary information

- Table 1 is poorly designed and unhelpful. See also comment above. The authors should disclose the statistical distributions, parameters, and ideally variance matrix for the three survival curves required in this model - PFS1, PFS2 and OS. Since two piece modeling is used, PFS1, PFS2 and OS survival at the 24 month cutoff (per Methods model input) is also important to disclose.

**********

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**********

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PLoS One. 2024 Feb 1;19(2):e0298130. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298130.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


25 Dec 2023

18 December 2023

Alvaro Galli

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Dear Prof Galli

Thank you very much for the opportunity to have our publication submitted and reviewed by PLOS One. As requested by the reviewers, we are pleased to submit our revised article entitled “Cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib maintenance therapy for BRCA mutation ovarian cancer in the public sector in Malaysia” for review by PLOS One. As outlined below, we have made the following modifications in our article as follow:-

Reviewer #1 had the following comments

Comment#1 The authors indicate that a number of PARPi's are available as first-line maintenance therapies. Why focus here on only olaparib?

We take note and thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have now expanded our introduction section to describe the other PARPi that are currently available. Our revised introduction now reads as follow:

Among these, the PARP inhibitors have reported some encouraging findings in patients with ovarian cancer. Examples of PARP inhibitors include olaparib, niraparib, rucaparib as well as veliparib, of which the first three have been shown to have promising anticancer activities in BRCA mutated patients. Olaparib monotherapy was approved for first-line maintenance therapy of BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer based upon the SOLO-1 study.[6] The primary study showed that after a median follow-up of 41 months, there was a reduction in disease progression or death by 70% in the olaparib treated group (hazard ratio (HR): 0.30; 95% CI: 0.23 to 0.41). This was confirmed in the recent updated SOLO-1 study which reported that 67.0% of olaparib-treated participants were alive 7 years after randomisation compared to 46.5% among those treated with placebo.[7]

Two other PARP inhibitors were subsequently approved, namely niraparib and rucaparib. In the PRIMA study, patients randomised to niraparib or placebo for 36 months or until disease progression The study found that median PFS was longer with niraparib maintenance compared to placebo (13.8 vs 8.2 months), with larger benefits among those whose tumour tested positive for HRD. The ATHENA-MONO study where patients received either rucaparib or placebo for up to 24 months or until disease progressed reported a longer PFS among those receiving rucaparib therapy (20.2 vs 9.2 months). Taken together, these results suggest that all three PARP inhibitors improved PFS and can provide benefits when used in first-line settings.

Comment #2 First sentence of para 4 is unclearly written. The relevance of data for olaparib in PSROC, a setting later than the one considered in this paper is unclear.

We agree and thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have now deleted that sentence to avoid any confusion.

Comment # 3. Sentence 2 of para 5 requires a supporting reference. Suggested where?

We agree this was unclear and thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have now included 2 references to clarify this. The revised sentence and references are as follow

Despite the clinical promise of this strategy, costs are a substantial barrier to treatment accessibility especially in low-middle income countries (LMICs) as cancer diagnosis and treatment impose a high financial burden.[1, 2]

Reference

• Aminuddin F, Bahari MS, Zainuddin NA, et al. The Direct and Indirect Costs of Cancer among the Lower-Income Group: Estimates from a Pilot and Feasibility Study. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev 2023;24(2):489-96. doi: 10.31557/apjcp.2023.24.2.489

• Leive A, Xu K. Coping with out-of-pocket health payments: empirical evidence from 15 African countries. Bull World Health Organ 2008;86(11):849-56. doi: 10.2471/blt.07.049403

Comment #4. The rationale for this model structure is unclear. In this evaluation of olaparib, the authors cite structures from HTA evaluations of niraparib. This seems potentially disingenuous if HTA evaluations of olaparib, the subject of this paper, used a different structure. Certainly, Muston et al used 3 states, not 4 states as here [32]. Why use 4 states if others have used 3?

We agree and thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have now revised our references to cite the relevant HTA evaluations for Olaparib instead. We also do note that our study used a 4 state as opposed to a 3-state model used by other HTA. However, our consultation with clinicians suggest that a 3-state model was considered oversimplistic and does not reflect the disease progression of ovarian cancer, which led to our use of a 4-state model. This similar approach has been used by Tan and colleagues in Singapore whose healthcare system mimics those in Malaysia. Our revised methods now reads as follow:-

A hypothetical four state partitioned survival with 1-month cycle, with a half-cycle correction was developed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of two management strategies, treatment with olaparib or routine surveillance in women with ovarian cancer. The mutually exclusive health states included: progression free state (PF), which can then transition to progressed disease 1 (PD1, post first progression) state, progressed disease 2 (PD2, post second progression) state and death from any cause (Figure 1). This 4-state model was chosen given that it mimicked the treatment patterns and disease progressions for advanced ovarian cancer in Malaysia and the region.[3]

Additional details are also included as part of clinical data inputs as follow:-

Clinical inputs for the model were derived from SOLO-1 trial, which compared olaparib tablets with placebo after completing at platinum-based chemotherapy regimen.[4] Due to the lack of patient-level data, the PFS estimates were based upon the Kaplan-Meier (KM) estimates for the first 24 months. However, diagnostic plots indicated that the proportional hazards assumption was violated for all other timepoints beyond 24 months. To address this, we adopted an independent ‘piecewise’ model approach, where standard parametric survival distributions (including exponential, Weibull, log-logistic, log-normal, Gompertz, and generalized gamma) were used to fit onto each Kaplan-Meier curve beyond the 24-month inflexion point. Based upon the goodness-of-fit statistics (Akaike Information Criterion, AIC) as well as visual inspection of the curves, and clinical opinion, the most appropriate distributions for the extrapolation was selected. Similar to PFS, the OS estimates for olaparib during the first 24 months were based on the KM estimates from SOLO-1 study. As such, we used a similar approach as described above to determine the OS estimates beyond 24 months (Supplementary Table 1).

Comment #5 Paragraph 3 explaining health state membership is rather unclear, compounded by Suppl Table 1. We are told this is a 4 state partitioned survival model with states of PF, PD1, PD2 and death. This structure requires survival modeling of PFS1, PFS2 and OS. The supplementary table provides other information that does not correspond with this. The parameter values should be reported. The textual description in the manuscript is rather unclear.

We apologise for the confusion. We have now included the model parameters we had used in our revised appendix to provide a better context and transparency. We hope this will address the reviewer’s concern

Comment #6 28 seems a curious number to pick for the time horizon (years). Why not 20, 25, 30 or 40? The time horizon may be missing from the OWSA.

We agree this was unclear. In our model, we had chosen 28 years since the 10-year survival rates for ovarian cancer were 35%, and most women were not expected to live beyond 80 years old. As such, we had used this as our maximum duration. We have now included the rationale in our methods as follow:-

In the current study, a 28-year time horizon was considered sufficient in the base case to capture most of the survival benefits and costs accrued in the olaparib arm, given that the 10-year survival rate for patients with advanced ovarian cancer is approximately 35%, taking into account the average Malaysian women lifespan.[5, 6]

We have also updated the figure and included the time horizon in our OWSA

Comment #7 Health state utilities. Please confirm the references - some are included in Table 1, but not the text. What value sets / country do these relate to? Two sources are used, contrary to ISPOR guidelines because they may not be consistent. Why were niraparib utilities used?

We do note on the reviewer’s concern. In the absence of data from SOLO1, the quality of life of patients with PD2 was based on utility data from patients that progressed after treatment with olaparib in a platinum sensitive recurrent OC setting, as reported in NICE TA381. These data represent the quality of life of patients with that have progressed after 2nd line PARP treatment. We do note that these reference was incorrect and have now revised it in our revised table.

The revised sentence now reads as follow:-

Due to the absence of locally available data, the utility values for PFS and PD1 states were derived from SOLO-1 study,[4] while PD2 were obtained from utility data of patients that progressed after treatment with olaparib in a platinum sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer[7]

Comment #8 Table 1. What kind of drug cost is quoted in Table 1 for olaparib. 'IMS' is indicated as a reference, but no full reference is actually provided. Is this derived from a public list price? Or does this value already reflect discounts/rebates that may be available and be a net price? This is important to know in understanding the conclusion from this paper.

We agree this was unclear. The cost included in the current model are those that already reflects the discount and rebates given and are the purchasing price for the public sector in Malaysia. We have now clarified this in our revised manuscript as follow:-

All drug costs included in the model reflects the discount and any rebates given, based upon the negotiated prices for the public sector

Comment #9- Resource utilization information is missing from the section on resource utilization. The section describes what resources are assumed, but not how much of each. For example, what subsequent treatments were recommended in the clinician survey? How frequently are physician visits required?

We agree this was unclear and thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have now included this information as follow and as part of Supplementary Table 3-

A dose of 600mg/day olaparib was used in the model based upon data from SOLO-1, with a maximum duration of 2 years before olaparib was stopped. Since olaparib was orally administered, no administration cost was considered in the model. The proportion of patients receiving olaparib over time was determined based upon the PFS curve for time to discontinuation or death in SOLO-1 study. Women who have disease progressed will then receive subsequent treatment, which includes a mixture of platinum and non-platinum chemotherapy regimens, which was identified through local clinical expert survey. For each chemotherapy cycle, the cost of consultation, blood counts and administration cost were accounted for. All patients with chemotherapy was assumed to receive 6 cycles of treatment (Supplementary Table 2). The utilization of each chemotherapy regimen can be found in Supplementary Table 3.

Comment #10. Sensitivity analyses. Why were only 'key' parameters varied? How was it pre-determined which parameters were 'key'? What is the difference between a PFS model and probability in this context? Was OS not varied? What statistical distributions were used for the PSA?

We agree this was unclear. We have now included the list of the various parameters varied as part of our deterministic analysis as well as the parameters chosen for PSA and their distribution in Supplementary Tabe 4 to increase the reproducibility and transparency of our model. The effects on changes in overall survival was also examined. We apologise for the lack of clarity.

Comment #11. - Sentence 2 is unclear as it contains two instances of 'which'.

We agree. We have now revised the sentence to read as follow:-

Over a 28-year time horizon, treating women with ovarian cancner wih olaparib was more costly compared to routine surveillance. Women receiving olaparib incurred an additional incremental cost of RM 149,858 (USD 33,213) compared to routine surveillance. This was mainly due to drug acquisition cost of olaparib, accounting for the majority of incremental costs (RM 280,673; USD 62,206) , but this costs was offset by savings from subsequent management costs (RM 147,234; USD 32,632)

Comment #12. Sensitivity analyses, paragraph 2. Articles 'a' and 'the' are occasionally missing.

Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised our sentence structure of our results section to clarify this. The revised paragraph now reads as follow:-

We conducted 1-way deterministic sensitivity analyses on key model parameters to investigate the impact of each parameter and to account for the uncertainties. The key parameters varied are listed in Supplementary Table 4. Whenever possible, we used the standard error of the selected parameter based upon the data source used to inform the mean values. In the event these are unavailable, we varied them by 20% of the mean values. These parameters were tested individually to determine the impact based upon the recommended willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of one-GDP of Malaysia in 2022 (RM53,043/QALY or USD 11,756; assuming 1USD=RM4.512).[30, 31] A probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) was also conducted using 1,000 Monte Carlo simulation to assess the uncertainty in model input with the base-case results.

Comment #13. What is the relevance of a WTP threshold of RM53,043? Is this a local standard? Please explain. Otherwise it is little surprise that about half of PSA simulations were above/below a value so close to the mean ICER.

We apologise that this was unclear. In Malaysia, the WTP threshold was set as one GDP by the Malaysian Health Technology Assessment Workgroup and has been used as a local standard for health technology assessment. We have now clarified this in the methods to avoid any ambiguity. The revised sentence now reads as follow

These parameters were tested individually to determine the impact based upon the recommended willingness to pay (WTP) threshold of one-GDP of Malaysia in 2022 (RM53,043/QALY or USD 11,756; assuming 1USD=RM4.512).[8, 9]

Comment #14. Total LYs and total QALYs should be added to Table 2.

We thank the reviewer for pointing this out as it was unclear. We have now revised our heading on Table 2 to clarify this

Comment #15. What is a 'quality of life year' (line 6)? Is it related to QALY?

We thank the reviewer for pointing this out. We have now revised our sentence to describe this as quality-adjusted life year as intended. The revised sentence now reads as follow:-

In our cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib compared to routine surveillance in Malaysia, treatment with olaparib substantially improves the overall PFS by 5.00 years, life-years by 3.05 years and quality-adjusted life years by 2.78

Comment #16. Life years appear to increase by either 3.05 years (line 6) or 2.87 years (line 8). Which?

We apologise for the confusion. We had initially wanted to illustrate the similarities of our PSA results with the base case but we do realise that this had resulted in further confusion. To avoid this confusion, we have now deleted the sentence.

Comment #17. Para 2 cites a slightly confusing mix of studies. The most relevant study here by treatment setting appears to be Muston [32], since this also evaluates olaparib in this same treatment setting (but in the US). It is questionable whether the others mentioned are truly 'similar studies' as claimed [10, 29-31] because they mostly appear in later PROC settings. One cannot easily compare CE of an agent between two different treatment settings - or the substantial difficulties with this should be acknowledged.

We take note of the reviewer’s suggestion to improve the clarity of our manuscript. We have now revised our paragraph 2 and removed the studies that are not considered similar or have a different setting. We have also included the limitations as the reviewer suggested.

However, our analyses showed that olaparib was not likely to be a cost-effective strategy for women with ovarian cancer at the current price from Malaysia’s context, as it was above the Malaysian threshold of cost-effectiveness, which suggested that the value should be below one GDP. Results of the one-way sensitivity analysis showed that the ICER was highly sensitive to the cost of olaparib. Overall, the findings suggest that a reduction in the cost of olaparib is needed to be a cost-effective treatment in Malaysia. Nevertheless, this needs to be taken into context the substantial improvements in QALY and LYs relative to current practice. Indeed, as shown in the SOLO1 trial, treatment with olaparib was shown to provide significant benefits beyond the 2 years treatment period. Results of our study closely mimic the study by Muston and colleagues in the United States which found that the use of olaparib compared to routine surveillance in US increases both the LYs and QALYs of women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer and with a germline or somatic BRCA mutation.[32]

Comment #18. The assumption of ToT=PFS (but capped at 2 years) may also be key to the results and should ideally be explored. What if ToT was longer/shorter than PFS?

We do agree this is an interesting point. However, as most of the information was unavailable, introducing this variable may result in more uncertainties in our model.

Comment #19. Not well worded. This suggests patients ('those') have a 53,043 (no units) /QALY threshold. 'The need' in sentence 2 is unclear.

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have now revised our conclusion to read as follow

The use of olaparib as a maintenance therapy is currently not a cost-effective strategy compared to standard of care which is routine surveillance in Malaysia, especially among those with BRCA mutation using a threshold of RM53,043/QALY. However, given that olaparib improves QALY and LYs, it may be important to reevaluate the cost-effectiveness of olaparib in the future

Comment #20. Supplementary information - Table 1 is poorly designed and unhelpful. See also comment above. The authors should disclose the statistical distributions, parameters, and ideally variance matrix for the three survival curves required in this model - PFS1, PFS2 and OS. Since two piece modeling is used, PFS1, PFS2 and OS survival at the 24 month cutoff (per Methods model input) is needed

We agree. We have now revised our table 1 as requested based on the input by the esteemed reviewer. We have also included the statistical distribution and parameters with relevant information for the various survival curves for the model.

We hope that our changes will meet the requirements of the journal and will help clarify any doubts the reviewer had and look forward to contributing to the journal soon.

Yours truly

Shaun Lee

On behalf of the authors

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer_response PLOS One.docx

Decision Letter 1

Alvaro Galli

21 Jan 2024

Cost-effectiveness analysis of olaparib maintenance therapy for BRCA mutation ovarian cancer in the public sector in Malaysia

PONE-D-23-29905R1

Dear Dr. Lee,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Alvaro Galli

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

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Acceptance letter

Alvaro Galli

24 Jan 2024

PONE-D-23-29905R1

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lee,

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on behalf of

Dr. Alvaro Galli

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Checklist. CHEERS 2022 checklist.

    (DOCX)

    S1 Table. The rate of transition used in the model.

    (DOCX)

    S2 Table. List of subsequent line anticancer regimens used in the model.

    (DOCX)

    S3 Table. Resource utilization for subsequent therapies.

    (DOCX)

    S4 Table. Parameters included in the deterministic and probabilistic analysis and their distribution.

    (DOCX)

    S5 Table. Results of deterministic sensitivity analyses conducted in this study.

    (DOCX)

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Reviewer_response PLOS One.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    The underlying data used for the model prediction was obtained from unpublished data of clinical studies funded by Astra Zeneca and currently are under embargo for publication. The full data can be requested from https://vivli.org/ourmember/astrazeneca/ via ExternalDataSharing@astrazeneca.com.


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