Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) is documented to be associated with several precancerous lesions (CIN, VIN and VaIN), cancer and genital warts. In this economic evaluation, we evaluated the cost-effectiveness of administering a catch-up vaccine to females aged 26 years or younger in addition to the current practice of vaccinating 12 year-old- girls compared to maintaining the current practice.

Currently, two vaccines are available in the Norwegian market with documented effect against HPV-infection: the quadrivalent vaccine, directed at HPV 6, 11, 16 and 18, and the bivalent vaccine, directed at HPV 16 and 18. In this report, we estimated the cost-effectiveness of the quadrivalent vaccine for the target population. The cost-effectiveness of the bivalent vaccine is nevertheless discussed in one of the scenario analyses we conducted.

The main results of the evaluation are the following:

• From a public health budget perspective and given the current public price of NOK 1 010.9/dose of the quadrivalent vaccine, introducing a catch-up vaccine for the target population is cost-effective if one is willing to pay NOK 578 391 for a gained quality-adjusted life-year (QALY).
• For a willingness-to-pay of NOK 578 391/QALY and from a public health budget perspective, the bivalent vaccine may be considered cost-effective if its price is no higher than approximately NOK 780/dose.
• From a societal perspective, i.e. when costs to patients for time used under treatment and the work-related productivity costs due to disease are included, the catch-up vaccine is cost-effective if one is willing to pay NOK 553 691 per gained QALY.