Health Economic Benefits of Introducing Sucroferric Oxyhydroxide in the Treatment of Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease under Dialysis in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Hyperphosphatemia is an electrolyte disorder highly prevalent in patients with chronic kidney disease undergoing hemodialysis (HD) that usually requires treatment with oral phosphate binders (PBs). Sucroferric oxyhydroxide (SO) is a calcium-free, iron-based PB indicated for the control of serum phosphorus. In the real-world setting, SO has shown clinical effectiveness with a lower pill burden and has also been associated with reduced hospital admission rates. This study aims to assess the potential economic benefits resulting from the introduction of SO to the health-care setting of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). An economic analysis using data from a retrospective real-world study that compared HD patients with uninterrupted SO prescriptions with patients who discontinued SO and switched to other PBs (oPBs). Annual drug costs for the estimated PB-eligible population in KSA were quantified. Costs per responder were estimated for all treatments. Hospital admissions' incidence rates were converted into annual inpatient cost savings and were deducted from drug costs to estimate the annual economic effect of SO versus oPBs. Sensitivity and breakeven analyses were also conducted. The eligible population for PB therapy in KSA was estimated at n = 14,748. Treating therapy-eligible populations exclusively with SO was estimated to generate annual inpatient cost-savings of SAR 107.4-119.4 million compared to treating the population with oPBs. The estimated economic effect signified overall annual savings ranging from SAR 82.8 to SAR 94.8 million when the population is treated with SO. Sensitivity analyses showed persistent cost savings. The estimated benefit-cost ratios showed that for every SAR 1 spent on SO, the expected return on investment was SAR 4.4-4.9. SO is an effective therapy that may result in substantial cost savings from reducing hospital admission costs that are attributable to hyperphosphatemia among HD patients.