Reimbursement of macrophage therapy liver cirrhosis treatment

Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult built a health economics model to detail the reimbursement potential of macrophage therapy for the treatment of liver cirrhosis.

The challenge

Cirrhosis of the liver occurs when scar tissue replaces healthy tissue preventing the liver from working properly, and is now a growing healthcare issue.

The University of Edinburgh and Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) are developing a new autologous treatment for patients suffering from liver cirrhosis. Cells from the blood (monocytes) are differentiated to an anti-inflammatory type of blood cell (macrophages) and re-administered to reduce the effects of liver disease.

The new macrophage therapy is one of many autologous therapies in development relating to inflammation and immunity.

The solution

Knowing autologous therapy reimbursement potential early in clinical development is crucial due to its high cost.

The MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and SNBTS, approached the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) to provide a market access assessment and contribute to their commercialisation working group in preparation of a first-in-man trial named MATCH (Macrophage Therapy for Liver Cirrhosis). CGT Catapult also provided support with the non-clinical and regulatory work.

Our expertise

The management of liver disease is complex, so CGT Catapult consulted independent clinical leaders and then applied our health economics expertise to build a multifactorial economic model from scratch.

The model detailed the reimbursement potential against current competition and also demonstrated where this price potential is sensitive to many different clinical outcomes.

Creating health and wealth

The University of Edinburgh and SNBTS now have a baseline reimbursement potential which can be used to inform the clinical development and manufacturing strategies and ensure they ultimately deliver a commercially viable cost-effective therapy; this will help secure timely therapy adoption and enable patients, healthcare systems and the manufacturers to benefit.