Biosimilars

Amjevita’s revenue was down 63% in the second quarter (Q2) compared with the first quarter of 2023, when the biosimilar launched.

A white paper crafted by the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) outlined that main causes of generic drug shortages and recommended several actions for stakeholders to remedy current shortages and prevent future ones.

Even at a steep discount, the list prices of new adalimumab biosimilars are significantly higher than the original price of the originator product (Humira), highlighting how dramatically its list price has risen over the years.

A new analysis finds branded insulin glargine (Lantus) still has a majority of total market volume and new drug starts despite competition from Semglee, an interchangeable biosimilar.

As Humira biosimilars enter the market, patient education about biosimilars is crucial to prevent the nocebo effect when patients switch from the reference product, explained Laura Wingate, executive vice president, Education, Support, & Advocacy, Crohn's & Colitis Foundation.

A report from Samsung Bioepis highlighted the positive correlation between biosimilar usage and average sales price discounts, with the oncology space being more price sensitive than other areas.

Two abstracts presented at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting evaluated biosimilar adoption across oncology practices and highlighted the role payers play in preventing or promoting adoption.

Adam Colborn, JD, director of government relations at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), also explains what health systems can do to improve patient access to biosimilars.

After 7 years, competition for Humira is here. The first adalimumab biosimilar launched in January, but an additional 8, including an interchangeable product, will hit the US market in July.

Scott Soefje, PharmD, director of pharmacy cancer care at Mayo Clinic, explains how education can help with biosimilar adoption and how an updated biosimilar workflow has simplified the prior authorization process.

The Act4Biosimilars Action Plan seeks to increase biosimilar adoption by at least 30 percentage points in 30-plus countries by 2030.

Biosimilars are starting to make a significant impact in overall drug spending, which is what they are designed to do, said Scott Soefje, PharmD, director of pharmacy cancer care at Mayo Clinic.

The pharmacy benefit manager SmithRx has announced that through a partnership with the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, it will offer Yusimry, an adalimumab biosimilar, for less than 90% of the cost of the reference product, Humira.

The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, an online pharmacy dedicated to increasing access to lower-cost prescriptions, is partnering with Coherus Biosciences to distribute Yusimry, a biosimilar referencing Humira. It’s the first time the pharmacy has added a biosimilar to its list of drugs.

When multiple trastuzumab biosimilars entered the US market in quick succession, they were able to do something other biosimilars have not in the United States: drive down the cost of the originator biologic.

Abstracts presented at EULAR 2023 highlighted the impact that a mandatory switching policy had on biosimilar uptake in British Columbia, Canada, and the lack of uptake when no such policy was in place in the United States.

New research has found the 340B program is slowing uptake of biosimilars by incentivizing use of more expensive biologics.

The 2023 Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit took place in early May in Las Vegas, Nevada, and The American Journal of Managed Care® was there to cover the meeting—catch up on what you may have missed.

The FDA approved Celltrion Healthcare’s Yuflyma (adalimumab-aaty), which is a high-concentration, citrate-free formulation.

Previous studies have found modest uptake of biosimilars in both commercial and Medicare populations. This study finds that the uptake varies between the rural and urban provider settings.

Amneal Pharmaceuticals this week launched its pegfilgrastim biosimilar, Fylnetra (pegfilgrastim-pbbk), for the treatment and prevention of febrile neutropenia, making it the sixth biosimilar referencing Neulasta to enter the US market.

At the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) 2023 Annual Meeting, a patient joined a panel to give insight into the challenges of living with a chronic illness and what he sees as the pros and cons of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The results indicate that the program could play a role in discouraging use of biosimilars in the United States.

Fran Gregory, PharmD, vice president of emerging therapies at Cardinal Health, discusses the role the new wave of biosimilars will have on rebate practices for both pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and payers.

A review article investigating the use of bevacizumab biosimilars found that despite lingering concerns about their usage for extrapolated indications, bevacizumab biosimilars are regularly used in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) even though clinical tests only evaluate them in patients with lung cancer.

Oncology has been an easy area for employers to adopt biosimilars because of the rising costs in the space, said Margaret Rehayem, vice president, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. Now that multiple adalimumab (Humira) biosimilars are hitting the US market, employers should take a step back to review their current strategy around the drug.

These factors could provide a scientific basis for consistency evaluations of the quality and efficacy of insulin biosimilars, study authors wrote.

Rebates remain very attractive for many employers, but they should push back on the reliance on rebates that may be preventing biosimilars from being added to formularies, said Margaret Rehayem, vice president, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.

A study assessing factors that may determine a commercial health plan’s likelihood of covering a biosimilar found that biosimilars that are cancer therapies, used to treat children, indicated for highly prevalent conditions, or only competing against the originator were more likely to have coverage restrictions.

While employers fall on a spectrum when it comes to knowledge and understanding of biosimilars, there does remain a need to educate them, as well as for them to educate their employees, said Margaret Rehayem, vice president, National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.