Cost of Stem Cell-Based Tissue-Engineered Airway Transplants in the United Kingdom: Case Series

Abstract

Stem cell-based tissue-engineered tracheas are at an early stage in their product development cycle. Tens of patients have been treated worldwide in predominantly compassionate use settings, demonstrating significant promise. This potentially life-saving treatment is complex, and the cost and its implications for such treatments are yet to be fully understood. The costs are compounded by varying strategies for graft preparation and transplant, resulting in differing clinical and laboratory costs from different research groups. In this study, we present a detailed breakdown of the clinical and manufacturing costs for three of the United Kingdom (UK) patients treated with such transplants. All three patients were treated under Compassionate Use legislation, within the UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital setting. The total costs for the three UK patients treated ranged from $174,420 to $740,500. All three patients were in a state of poor health at time of treatment and had a number of complexities in addition to the restricted airway. This is the first time a cost analysis has been made for a tissue-engineered organ and provides a benchmark for future studies, as well as comparative data for use in reimbursement considerations.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01977911.

Figures

FIG. 1.

A chart showing the decreasing clinical costs calculated for Patient 1, across the different periods from the operation up until the most recent follow-up (reproduced with permission granted from Am. J. Transplant. Copyright © American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons) Costs shown in USD (converted from GBP to USD using Thompson-Reuters ForEx rate on 25 March 2015), rounded to nearest $10.