OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of insulin degludec/insulin aspart (IDegAsp) versus biphasic insulin aspart 30 (BIAsp 30) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in China, using a short-term economic model.

METHODS: A published and validated short-term model developed in Microsoft Excel was used to evaluate the costs and effects of treatment with IDegAsp twice daily versus BIAsp 30 twice daily over a 2-year period, from the perspective of Chinese healthcare payers. The clinical data required for the model were obtained from a phase III treat-to-target clinical trial in China (NCT02762578), including insulin dosing, hypoglycemia rates, and reduced body mass index (BMI). Costs including treatment cost and hypoglycemic cost and event-related disutility data were derived from published sources. The insulin prices were the averaged drug provincial biding prices until December 2019 in china. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. No discounting was applied for such a short time horizon.

RESULTS: Compared with BIAsp 30, treatment with IDegAsp was associated with an improvement of 0.0252 (1.5388 vs. 1.5137) quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) over a 2-year time horizon, driven by lower rates of hypoglycemic events, and less additional self-measured blood glucose (SMBG) test for hypoglycemic events. IDegAsp saved 289 CNY for total cost than BIAsp 30 (38,803 vs. 39,092). Cost savings were primarily driven by lower hypoglycemic cost (8,409 CNY, 6,738 vs. 15,147), which offset the higher insulin costs (8,120 CNY, 20,816 vs. 12,696) relative to BIAsp 30. Results were robust across a range of sensitivity analyses.

CONCLUSIONS: This short-term cost-effectiveness model showed that, compared with BIAsp 30, IDegAsp resulted in a gain of QALYs and savings in costs, and was a dominant treatment option for people with T2DM in China.