Global health and economic impact of expanding the WHO essential medicines list for psoriasis: a health economic modelling study.
Expanding World Health Organization essential medicines list access to biosimilars could add 5.56 million quality-adjusted life-years globally.
Global health and economic impact of expanding the WHO essential medicines list for psoriasis: a health economic modelling study.
Psoriasis affects at least 60 million people globally, but access to effective biologic treatments is limited, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
An empirical decision-analytic health economic model was developed to estimate the incremental costs and quality-adjusted life-years (quality-adjusted life-years) over a five-year horizon, using a 3% discount rate.
wider biosimilar access could add years of healthy life worldwide
Expanded biosimilar access under Essential Medicines List implementation was simulated to generate an incremental 0.625 quality-adjusted life-years per patient at an additional cost of $13,973 USD over five years.
One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses confirmed probabilistic analysis mean of 5.67 million quality-adjusted life-years (95% Credible Interval [CrI] 0.38-12.84 million).
The recent expansion of the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List for psoriasis to include biosimilars could yield over 5.5 million quality-adjusted life-years globally.
The profound health and access implications of the world-wide implementation of this Essential Medicines List expansion will require regional monitoring.