Cost-effectiveness of Bezlotoxumab Compared with Placebo for the Prevention of Recurrent Clostridium difficile Infection

Background. Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is the most commonly recognized cause of recurrent diarrhea. Bezlotoxumab, administered concurrently with antibiotics directed against C. difficile (standard of care [SoC]), has been shown to reduce the recurrence of CDI, compared with SoC alone. This study aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of bezlotoxumab administered concurrently with SoC, compared with SoC alone, in subgroups of patients at risk of recurrence of CDI. Methods. A computer-based Markov health state transition model was designed to track the natural history of patients infected with CDI. A cohort of patients entered the model with either a mild/moderate or severe CDI episode, and were treated with SoC antibiotics together with either bezlotoxumab or placebo. The cohort was followed over a lifetime horizon, and costs and utilities for the various health states were used to estimate incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Both deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were used to test the robustness of the results. Results. The cost-effectiveness model showed that, compared with placebo, bezlotoxumab was associated with 0.12 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained and was cost-effective in preventing CDI recurrences in the entire trial population, with an ICER of $19 824/QALY gained. Compared with placebo, bezlotoxumab was also cost-effective in the subgroups of patients aged ≥65 years (ICER of $15 298/QALY), immunocompromised patients (ICER of $12 597/QALY), and patients with severe CDI (ICER of $21 430/QALY). Conclusions. Model-based results demonstrated that bezlotoxumab was cost-effective in the prevention of recurrent CDI compared with placebo, among patients receiving SoC antibiotics for treatment of CDI.