OBJECTIVES: This study aims to assess the budget impact of introducing a new hydrogel, NOVOCART Inject plus (Ninject), for the treatment of symptomatic articular cartilage defects of the knee in the healthcare system of NHS England.

METHODS: A model was developed to evaluate the 5-year budget impact of implementing Ninject for patients with knee cartilage defects. The model utilized data from the phase 3 Ninject trial (NCT03319797) and incorporated a Markov model to simulate health states over a lifetime. The analysis of net budget impact compared Ninject with the current treatments, microfracture (MF), and Spherox. The number of eligible patients was determined based on a previous assessment by NICE. The market share of Ninject was assumed to increase annually, reaching 2.2% uptake by year 5, with a sensitivity analysis considering a maximum uptake of 7.6%. The cost of Ninject was assumed to be £15,000. The analysis was conducted from an NHS perspective, starting in 2022.

RESULTS: The cumulative net 5-year budget impact of introducing Ninject was estimated to be £4.3 million. In year 5, the total costs for current practice and future practice were projected to be £55.6 million and £56.9 million, respectively. The maximum annual net budget impact was estimated at £1.27 million. In the sensitivity analysis, with faster uptake, the cumulative net budget impact over 5 years increased to £7.4 million.

CONCLUSIONS: The introduction of Ninject in the NHS is not expected to have a significant resource impact, with an estimated annual budget impact of less than £1.3 million for NHS England. This is because Ninject is priced similarly to current standard treatments and will replace current treatments in certain patients. Furthermore, the affected population size is relatively small, with fewer than 10,000 patients affected per year.