Pharmacoeconomics of etravirine

Abstract

HIV infection, particularly multidrug-resistant HIV, continues to be a major societal and economic challenge worldwide. Etravirine, a new (US FDA approved in 2008) non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, has been shown to be very effective in treating patients who have failed prior antiretroviral therapy. Clinical studies demonstrated that etravirine in combination with other antiretrovirals achieved superior levels of undetectable plasma HIV RNA and CD4 cell count increases that led to reductions in risk of death and development of AIDS-defining illnesses when compared with placebo. Etravirine was also shown to be generally well tolerated, with favorable CNS and psychiatric tolerability profiles. In addition, etravirine in combination with other antiretrovirals has been shown to improve quality of life and quality-adjusted life expectancy. Economic evaluations showed that the addition of etravirine to a regimen was associated with lower costs per person with an undetectable viral load and lower hospital-related costs compared with placebo.

Keywords::

• AIDS
• cost–effectiveness
• etravirine
• HIV
• NNRTI
• pharmacoeconomics

Financial & competing interests disclosure

DS Fullerton had full editorial control on the content of this manuscript; he received funding from Tibotec Therapeutics to assist in its preparation. David Anderson, Jane Watson, and Joseph M Mrus are employees of Tibotec Therapeutics. SCM is an employee of Centocor Ortho Biotech Services. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.