When the non-profit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) called the PCSK9 inhibitors vastly overpriced in 2015, that determination was despite an anticipated mortality benefit from the dramatic lipid lowering effect.
Now that the FOURIER trial has turned up a reduction in cardiovascular benefits without a mortality impact, ICER said Tuesday that it is revising its cost-effectiveness analysis.
"In the coming months ICER will release an updated economic analysis based on the FOURIER trial data that will include a revised, lower value-based price benchmark for evolocumab" (Repatha) -- i.e., less than the $5,404 to $7,735 per year of treatment it previously said the class should cost for patients like those included in the trial.
Meanwhile, it updated its to call evolocumab atop statin therapy "comparable or better" than statins alone.