CHDS faculty Ankur Pandya and colleagues estimated the cost-effectiveness of semaglutide, along with its impact on health equity, as an obesity treatment for Black and White adults aged 65–70 years with a BMI of at least 35 and cardiovascular disease, compared with laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) and a “do nothing” option.
The researchers built a Markov model that simulated outcomes over 25 years from a healthcare perspective. At semaglutide’s newly negotiated price of $245 per month, the model estimated that both semaglutide and LSG were cost-effective compared with doing nothing, at $7,300 and $12,100 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), respectively. Although costlier than semaglutide, LSG was cost-effective when directly compared with it, at an added $53,700 per QALY gained. At a threshold of $100,000 per QALY, LSG was the most cost-effective option in 57% of 10,000 probabilistic simulations, compared with 43% for semaglutide.
A distributional analysis, which also accounts for effects on health disparities, indicated that semaglutide was slightly more equitable than LSG, resulting in a smaller Black-White health disparity, but not enough to make it distributionally cost-effective within the assumed range of inequality aversion. The authors noted that semaglutide would need a lower price or greater health gains to be favored over LSG under either type of analysis.
Learn more: Read the full publication, The Conventional Cost-Effectiveness and Distributional Cost-Effectiveness of Semaglutide for Obesity Treatment
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