OBJECTIVES: The objective of this research is to assess the cost-effectiveness of cariprazine compared to second-generation antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia for patients with negative symptoms in Hungary and Slovakia separately, and to compare the results of the analyses.

METHODS: A deterministic 8-health state Markov cohort model was built, to support the cost-utility analyses that were performed from a third-party payer perspective in both countries. Data were gathered from the scientific literature and public databases, supported by expert opinion. Cost data was gathered from local sources, to ensure that the results were relevant in the particular countries. At the time of the abstract submission data on every cost inputs was only available from Hungary.

RESULTS: The use of cariprazine resulted in 3.51 quality-adjusted life years (QALY)/patient over a time horizon of five years. The use of the comparator risperidone resulted in 3.42 QALY/patient in Hungary. In Slovakia, on the same time horizon, the use of cariprazine resulted in 3.46 QALY/patient, while the use of the comparator risperidone resulted in 3.37 QALY/patient. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of the comparison between cariprazine and risperidone is therefore 22 685 EUR/QALY in Hungary, which is below the local willingness to pay threshold.

CONCLUSIONS: The model demonstrated that cariprazine provides more health gain compared to risperidone in the treatment of schizophrenia for patients with negative symptoms in Hungary and Slovakia. Though cariprazine therapy requires additional costs in comparison with the current risperidone treatment, it is considered to be cost-effective in Hungary. Scenario analyses and sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the findings of the base-case analyses.