OBJECTIVES: As the number of treatment options for oncology patients continues to rise, multiple associations (ASCO, ESMO, NCCN, MSKCC, ICER) have developed Value Assessments Frameworks (VAFs) to support health care professionals (HCPs) decide which regimens to prioritize. However, uncertainty exists over how the results from the comparison of VAFs should be interpreted, either individually or in combination. Here we compare and contrast the results from VAFs of four simulated oncology treatments to determine how different VAFs can address the needs of different stakeholders.

METHODS: VAF from ASCO, ESMO, NCCN, MSKCC and ICER were programmed into a single Excel tool enabling the analysis for different treatments to be simultaneously assessed. Simulated oncology treatments investigated were: standard of care with chemotherapy (SoC), a moderately-effective low priced monotherapy (MLM), an effective moderately-priced monotherapy (MMM), and a high-priced highly-effective combination therapy (HHC).

RESULTS: ASCO, ESMO and MSKCC VAFs all ranked HHC highest, with MMM second, SoC third and MLM fourth. NCCN was similar except MMM ranked first and HHC second. The key driver behind ASCO, ESMO and NCCN was efficacy, though ESMO and ASCO also accounted for long-term outcomes and NCCN accounted for safety and affordability. MSKCC score was mostly driven by disease related factors, such as rarity, poor prognosis, and high unmet need. ICER ranked HHC first in terms of outcomes (achieving the greatest QALY and LY gains) followed by MMM; the lowest costs were associated with SoC.

CONCLUSIONS: Whilst each VAF assesses the value of a treatment using different concepts and scoring criteria, they all produce a consistent assessment of value. VAFs scoring may show divergence due to methodological differences in aggregation of safety, efficacy, epidemiology, and cost concepts. Therefore, the use and value of oncology treatments to stakeholders will depend on how each value these criteria.