OBJECTIVES: To determine the financial impact of the introduction of oral semaglutide in addition to the available injectable form as a treatment option for people with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) in Saudi Arabia (SA).

METHODS: From the public payer’s perspective, the model estimated the budget impact of adding oral semaglutide to the existing injectable form in comparison to adding dulaglutide as a primary comparator and other sodium-glucose transport protein 2 (SGLT 2) inhibitors and dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors as secondary comparators utilizing IQVIA market intelligence reports. The model included the cost of care through incorporation of health outcomes that have an impact on the payer’s budget: proportion of patients achieving HbA1C% target; cardiovascular risk (including stroke) reduction as a cost offset; and budget savings as a result from weight loss (impact of GLP-RAs). Unit costs were derived from local economic evidence and inflated to the current prices using the Saudi Consumer Price Indices and public tender price was used for the medication costs with the impact on the budget determined in Saudi Riyals (SAR) and converted to United States Dollars (USD) with conversion rate (1 SAR = 0.27 USD). Probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted using different distributions of the input parameters.

RESULTS: The introduction of the combination of oral and injectable semaglutide offers a 4.86 million USD (1.5%) budget savings over 5 years which has been largely driven by positive cost-driver impacts on cardiovascular complication costs (6.63 million USD (6%)) and diabetes management costs (1.99 million USD (1%)). Probabilistic sensitivity analysis determined 70.3% probability of budget savings by combining oral and injectable semaglutide.

CONCLUSIONS: Expanding the healthcare benefits package in SA to include oral and injectable forms of semaglutide will positively impact health outcomes for people with T2D and the public healthcare budget.