Background: To address the rising concern about oncology drug costs, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently developed unique tools to help providers and patients make informed decisions about the value of an anticancer regimen. The ASCO Value Framework (AVF) allows users to generate a net health benefit (NHB) score along with drug acquisition costs for oncology regimens that have been compared in a prospective randomized clinical trial. In contrast, the NCCN Evidence Blocks (NEB) derives ratings from an expert panel assessment in the categories of efficacy, safety, quality and consistency of evidence, and affordability.
Objective: To compare the results of the AVF and NEB by applying each tool to the same clinical scenarios.
Methods: We evaluated 2 regimens using the AVF and NEB scores: (1) enzalutamide for treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and (2) nivolumab versus docetaxel in treatment of advanced squamous and nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Results: Enzalutamide generated a total NHB score of 44.8 (range 0-180) for use before chemotherapy and 70.8 for use after chemotherapy with a monthly cost of $8,495 in the AVF. The NEB scored enzalutamide 4 (very effective) for efficacy, 4 (occasionally toxic) for safety, and 2 (expensive) for affordability in the no visceral metastases block. It scored 3 (moderately effective) for efficacy, 4 for safety, and 2 for affordability in the visceral metastases block. Nivolumab in advanced nonsquamous NSCLC scored 36.0 and 73.2 in advanced squamous NSCLC, with a monthly cost of $7,010 in the AVF. The NEB gave nivolumab a score of 4 for efficacy and safety and 1 (very expensive) for affordability in the NEB in advanced nonsquamous and advanced squamous NSCLC.
Conclusions: The AVF and NEB are novel tools that take different approaches in assessing the value of an oncology treatment regimen. From this study, it is clear that the findings generated by these tools are distinct. The AVF provides a summary score for treatments across all clinical benefit and toxicity categories, whereas the NEB provides component scores for treatment efficacy, safety, quality and consistency of evidence, and affordability. Both tools are novel and come with their own challenges.
Disclosures: No outside funding supported this study. Shah-Manek is also employed by Ipsos Healthcare, a consulting firm. The authors have no conflicting interests to report. Study concept and design were contributed by Shah-Manek and Ignoffo. Galanto and Nguyen collected the data, and data interpretation was performed by all the authors. All the authors contributed to writing the manuscript, which was revised primarily by Shah-Manek, along with Galanto, Nguyen, and Ignoffo. This research was previously presented as a poster and podium presentation at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Nexus 2016 held October 3-6 in National Harbor, Maryland.