Articles

In a review, Sandoz researchers discuss lingering barriers that prevent insulin prices from falling to more affordable levels.

Sandoz Reviews Insulin Access, Cost, and Biosimilar Potential

Tony Hagen is senior managing editor for The Center for Biosimilars

Henlius gains approval in China for Hanbeitai and officials discuss combination therapy options with experimental therapy serplulimab and ophthalmology treatment.

China Regulators Approve Henlius Bevacizumab Biosimilar Hanbeitai

Steven Yates, MD, an oncologist and medical director at Intermountain Healthcare, discusses problems underlying the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

Dr Steven Yates on the 340B Drug Pricing Program

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Here are the top 5 biosimilar articles for the week of November 29, 2021.

The Top 5 Biosimilar Articles for the Week of November 29

Meir Rinde, MS, is a freelance print and radio journalist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Researchers report findings that suggest a different reimbursement system for Medicare Part B biologics could lead to significantly more robust savings. 

Study: Medicare Consolidated Biosimilar Payment Codes Would Save Money

The Center for Biosimilars® interviewed Steven Yates, MD, a medical oncologist and medical director at Intermountain Healthcare in Las Vegas, Nevada. Three years ago, Intermountain hired him to lead its biosimilar adoption effort.

Yates says incentivizing providers to prescribe biosimilars is good for community oncology. He explains how much more receptive oncologists have been to biosimilars compared with other providers, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 50% of biosimilar adoption has occurred in community oncology and Yates believes this will only increase. Yates also compares the European Union experience with biosimilars with that in the United States. Overall, biosimilars are contributing to savings and as a result, many oncologists have been willing to utilize them.

The utilization rates for biosimilars in community oncology have been much higher than for other disease categories and are only expected to rise, says Steven Yates, MD.

Dr Steven Yates Discusses the Need for Biosimilar Incentives in Community Oncology

 from Samsung Bioepis and Organon takes aim at misconceptions about biosimilars and industry practices that hinder their adoption. The companies held 3 virtual panel sessions with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, policy experts, and patient advocates.

Authors of the paper hold up Cleveland Clinic as a model of a health system that has achieved success in converting patients to biosimilars from reference products.

Key to the success of Cleveland Clinic's program, the authors explain, was educating stakeholders and setting up direct communications so that patients and providers could learn what they needed to know about biosimilars.

Some of those stakeholders were nurses, who were given specific training so that they could “reassure patients about the quality of care they would be receiving and answer any questions patients might have.”

In the broader health care community, “many physicians still lack confidence in biosimilars,” the authors wrote. In oncology, biosimilars have been embraced by physicians and patients, but in gastroenterology, there are lingering concerns about whether these agents will serve patients as well as their reference products.

“Many gastroenterologists who prescribe biologics for their patients with inflammatory bowel disease are concerned about biosimilar safety, immunogenicity, and indication extrapolation,” the authors wrote.

Another health care institution that has successfully transitioned patients to biosimilars is Kaiser Permanente, authors of the whitepaper said.

“Kaiser’s approach starts with a rigorous review of available biosimilar evidence, including data from manufacturers, FDA approvals, and real-world data from countries where biosimilars have already launched,” they wrote.

Kaiser Permanente got biosimilars into circulation by building physician confidence, a strategy that 

Having these data on hand is critical to informing physicians and other stakeholders so they can more readily embrace biosimilars, the authors wrote.

However, those informational materials need to be digestible. “A gastroenterologist participating on the panel who has published on the merits of biosimilars in treating inflammatory conditions shared that many physicians are too busy to study in-depth clinical trial data and would prefer to receive easily digestible educational materials demonstrating a biosimilar’s safety, equivalence, and cost savings,” the authors wrote.

Samsung Bioepis has developed and gained regulatory approval for multiple biosimilar versions of reference products, and it relies on Organon for assistance with marketing these products. Some of Samsung Bioepis’ biosimilars include etanercept (autoimmune), infliximab (immunosuppressive), adalimumab (autoimmune), and other products. The company has a robust pipeline of biosimilars in development, including aflibercept (ophthalmology), denosumab (endocrinology), ustekinumab (immunology), and eculizumab (hematology) candidates.

Stakeholder education programs and robust data on clinical studies are key to building patient and provider support for biosimilars, according to a new whitepaper. 

Samsung Bioepis White Paper Describes Biosimilar Barriers to Adoption

Hi, I’m Skylar Jeremias for The Center for Biosimilars®, your resource for clinical, regulatory, business, and policy news in the rapidly changing world of biosimilars.

Here are the top 5 biosimilar articles for the week of November 15, 2021.

Number 5: Conservative think tank Pacific Research Institute (PRI) calculated 

Number 4: The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) stated in its latest Unsupported Price Increase report that when it comes to 

Number 3: Kathy Oubre, MS, a cochair of the biosimilars committee of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), explained findings from a 

 of biosimilar use in oncology practices.

 of the FDA's efforts to clarify the role of the interchangeable biosimilar designation, improve communication with manufacturers, and pay for biosimilar regulatory reviews.

Number 1: In its first quarter of independence from Pfizer, Organon 

 in biosimilars revenue; Sandoz' biosimilar portfolio has been touted as a growth driver amid talk of a spinoff from Novartis.

To read all of these articles and more, visit 

The Top 5 Biosimilar Articles for the Week of November 15

 to advise manufacturers how to minimize or avoid clinical trial requirements encountered challenges from the lack of mature quality data that applicants could provide, but participants nonetheless valued the feedback process and the agency will continue offering developers “tailored” scientific advice, the EMA said in a report.

Tailoring the development of biosimilars is of growing importance in light of the advances in knowledge and the emergence of more precise technologies for determining bioequivalence. Protein mass spectrometry, for example, is 10-million-fold more sensitive than it was a decade ago, and comparative clinical trials are now viewed as imprecise tools for determining likeness between biological agents.

The quality data submitted by 4 applicants were immature for reasons such as the limited number of batches or because the data were not obtained with material from the proposed commercial process, the report said.

That made it difficult for reviewers to make recommendations on questions such as the number and population of patients and the efficacy margins required for clinical trials.

A key insight of the pilot was that the regulatory guidelines anticipated a “stepwise” approach to comparability studies, in which early uncertainties about biosimilarity are used to determine whether and which further analyses are required. In reality, however, that analytical process occurs at the same time as clinical development, the report said

“Employing such tailored scientific advice requires adaptations in development by having a mature quality and in vitro nonclinical data package prior to the conduct of animal or clinical studies, in order for its utility not to be restricted to simple scientific advice ‘quality checks’ on the available data throughout the development,” the agency said.

For the pilot, which ran from February 2017 to April 2020, the Scientific Advice Working Party, Biologics Working Part, and Committee for Medicinal Products for 

Human Use agreed to conduct a more extensive scientific review than is standard.

The reviewers could give advice on differences identified at the quality level and their potential impact on the suitability of the biosimilar approach or on the need for and design of additional preclinical or clinical investigations. They could also advise whether a simplified clinical development program, such as a waiver of a clinical trial, could be granted.

Four applicants submitted 6 requests regarding biosimilar monoclonal antibodies, with one submitting 2 separate development plans and another requesting initial and follow-up advice for the same plan. The latter applicant’s second submission had a more “mature and comprehensive data package,” the report said. One applicant was a small/medium-size enterprise.

The advice given had, in most instances, more impact on the generation of quality data per se and less impact on clinical data requirements than anticipated. It would therefore need to be seen how biosimilar development programs can be adapted to allow potentially reduced animal and clinical study requirements.

Eight other prospective applicants expressed interest in participating. Over the same period, the agency also received 71 requests for standard advice on biosimilars.

The report said the participants appreciated the opportunity to discuss their quality comparability data with regulators and considered the comprehensiveness of the advice “very important” to gain clarity and confidence in their biosimilar programs. However, due to the immaturity of the data, the advice ultimately given had more impact on the generation of data and less on clinical data requirements than anticipated.

Thus it still remains to be seen “how biosimilar development programs can be adapted to allow potentially reduced animal and clinical study requirements to be considered,” the agency said.

EMA will continue to offer tailored scientific advice as part of its regular operations, in order to further develop the advice process using specific cases and to allow the continuation of useful scientific discussions.

The report noted that the pilot completed 6 sets of advice, as planned. The initial uptake was slower than expected, which the agency said is not unusual for new types of engagement opportunities.

Asked how well their expectations for tailored scientific advice were met, 4 applicants who responded to a feedback questionnaire gave an average rating of 3.7 of 5.

The World Health Organization is currently revising guidelines for biosimilar development, in part to incorporate a tailored approach. The Center for Biosimilars

, policy and science officer for Medicines for Europe, a trade organization, about the value of this process for bringing more competition to markets for orphan drugs and other therapeutics. 

European Medicines Agency (EMA) officials said their pilot was based on wrong assumptions about the biosimilar development process. 

EMA Reports on Pilot Study of Biosimilar Development Tailoring 

The Center for Biosimilars® spoke recently with Marta Baldrighi, PhD, policy and science officer for Medicines for Europe, a trade organization of generics and biosimilars producers, about the World Health Organization’s ongoing revision of its guidelines for evaluation of biosimilars. Baldrighi was a presenter on the topic at the recent Terrapinn Festival of Biologics meeting in Basel, Switzerland. 

 will help to clarify the evidence requirements that developers of “similar biological products,” or biosimilars, should aim to satisfy when developing these molecules. Regulatory authorities in the United States and the European Union are moving toward a streamlined or clinical trial (CT) “tailored approach” that allows biosimilar developers to focus on the most advanced analytical technologies for characterization of biosimilars (ie, ensuring equivalence with reference drug molecules) and avoid comparative clinical trials that are not as precise and contribute little, if anything, to the sum of significant evidence for judging equivalence between highly similar biologic medicines.

The WHO, in conducting this review process, is moving in step with advances in the United States and European Union and providing an implied endorsement of CT tailoring. Following a public comment period this year, the WHO in November 2021 released the second draft of the guidance, Baldrighi explains.

The inclusion of CT tailoring holds out significant potential for adding constructive flexibility to biosimilar development that could make it more achievable for manufacturers to develop orphan biosimilars (for rare diseases) and other types of molecules that, owing to prior regulatory standards, may have been too costly to produce, Baldrighi says.

Advanced molecular characterization techniques lower the cost of biosimilar development and can substitute for in-human clinical trials that may be difficult or impossible for companies to perform in cases where patients with these diseases or conditions are scarce, she explains.

The WHO is not a regulator in the sense that it reviews and authorizes investigational medicines for use, but it maintains a list of essential medicines that it judges are qualified for safe and efficacious use, and its recommended medicines are adopted by medical authorities and countries worldwide. These guidelines on evaluation of biosimilar medicines will provide biosimilar developers with the assurance that the evidence basis upon which their molecules are founded will be satisfactory to the WHO when it decides what medicines to endorse.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a fresh draft of its biosimilar evaluation guidelines. Medicines for Europe science and policy expert Marta Baldrighi, PhD, explains the significance. 

WHO Develops Clinical Trials Tailoring Approach for Biosimilars

Among 7 drugs in the United States that had the most impactful yet “unsupported” price increases in 2020, Humira (adalimumab) accounted for the lion’s share of the total increase: $1.4 billion of $1.67 billion, according to a study from the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER).

An unsupported price increase was defined as not being justified by new clinical evidence that would have suggested the drugs were significantly more important for treating patients than previously assumed.

ICER said in the case of adalimumab, which won’t face biosimilar competition until 2023, the price increases appear tied to “imminent loss of [patent] exclusivity” and the likelihood that payers will be unlikely to switch patients on adalimumab to a lower-priced product. Humira is used to treat a host of inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn disease, and ulcerative colitis.

Another factor characteristic of products with the highest unsupported price increases was that they are in categories “in which product substitution is difficult or impossible (eg, oncology, atypical antipsychotics),” ICER said.

Substantial price hikes for branded and generic drugs in the United States have failed to incentivize state and national leaders to determine whether these price increases are justified by new clinical evidence or other factors, ICER states in the report.

For the report, ICER studied the top 12 drugs (out of a basket of 250) in the United States whose prices had the greatest impact on national drug spending and sought to evaluate whether new clinical evidence was presented from 2019 to 2020 that might have justified the price increases seen.

“Nine were judged to have price increases unsupported by new clinical evidence and 3 were found to have price increases with new clinical evidence,” the report said. For 7 of the 9 drugs that ICER considered to have unsupported price hikes, the 1-year increase of $1.67 billion was significantly larger than observed last year when the same Unsupported Price Increase (UPI) was done: “This incremental budget impact of $1.67 billion is larger than the $1.2 billion from 7 drugs with unsupported price increases seen in last year’s UPI report.”

Despite these increases, overall net prices for drugs in the United States have decreased over the past several years, ICER said. The report states that there is potential for Congress to impose a cap on drug price spending, and “the context for assessment of drug price increases may shift.”

Among the top drugs with unsupported price increases from 2019 to 2020, Humira ranked highest, with a 7.3% increase in wholesale average cost (WAC), a 9.6% increase in list price, and an increase in drug spending due to the price increases of $1.4 billion 

. In second place was bone marrow stimulant Promacta (eltrombopag) with 7.2% and 14.1% WAC and net price increases, respectively, and a $100 million increase in spending.

In third place was the immunosuppressive therapy Tysabri (natalizumab), with 7.1% and 4.2% increases for WAC and net price, and a $43.6 million overall spending increase. In fourth place was Xifaxan (rifaximin), used to treat inflammatory bowel disease, with 8.4% and 3.0% increases, respectively, and an overall spending increase of $43.6 million.

The ranking illustrates how dramatic the Humira price increases were in terms of impact relative to those for the rest of the pack.

ICER solicited statements from the manufacturers to justify the price increases and was told by AbbVie, the maker of Humira, that the company is “continually” investing in patient-centric enhancements to adalimumab. AbbVie said this includes a recent citrate-free formulation that reduces pain on injection for patients, thinner injection needle, and new dosing configurations.

“Continuous innovations like these require significant ongoing investment” and “such investment and innovation has continued to return value to patients, health care providers, and policymakers and yet is not considered or reflected in ICER’s methodology or report,” AbbVie stated. The response was dated October 12, 2021.  

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) states in its latest Unsupported Price Increase report that when it comes to rising drug prices, Humira is in a class of its own.

ICER: Humira's Price Increases in 2020 Were Unsupported by Clinical Evidence

A study from a free market–focused think tank argues for the elimination of market barriers to biosimilars to tap potentially billions of dollars in health care system savings that biosimilars for 2 widely used drugs could provide.

 from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) in California analyzed the potential impact of biosimilars for AbbVie’s adalimumab (Humira), the top-selling drug in the United States, and Amgen’s etanercept (Enbrel). Both therapies treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune conditions.

Annual systemic savings could total up to $5.8 billion, with $4.7 billion resulting from biosimilars for Humira and $1.1 billion from drugs that are interchangeable with Enbrel, said Wayne Winegarden, PhD, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation and the study’s author.

“These calculations emphasize the importance of promoting an environment that empowers competition once the originator’s exclusivity period has expired. These reforms include eliminating barriers such as rebate walls and promoting positive reforms such as favorable formulary tiers for biosimilars,” Winegarden wrote.

The estimate is based on the maximum savings possible if new biosimilars for the 2 drugs were to achieve a 75% market share. The total savings would reach up to $3.9 billion at 50% market share, and between $1.3 billion and $1.9 billion at 25% market share.

Neither drug currently faces competition from biosimilars. Amgen has said it plans to begin marketing adalimumab (Amjevita), the European Union’s best-selling adalimumab biosimilar, in the United States in 2023. A commercial license for Boehringer Ingelheim’s adalimumab (Cyltezo) will begin in 2023, according to the company.

The FDA has approved 2 Enbrel biosimilars, Sandoz’s etanercept (Erelzi) and Samsung Bioepis’ etanercept (Eticovo), neither of which is available in the United States due to patent issues.

AbbVie’s Humira generated $16.11 billion in gross revenues and Amgen’s Enbrel earned $4.86 billion in 2020, according to the PRI study.

To the extent that the net prices of Humira and Enbrel increase before the introduction of competition, then the potential savings enabled by biosimilar competition would increase.

However, after considering rebates, fees, and discounts that the manufacturers pay, and projecting the change in sales from last year, Winegarden projected that the health care system will spend $10.3 billion on Humira and $2.5 billion on Enbrel doses in 2021.

The study used 3 scenarios for drug price discounts—40%, 50%, and 60%—that could occur if biosimilars for the drugs were available, and modeled the resulting ranges of systemic savings at different levels of market share gain.

Breaking the figures down by payer, commercial payers could save up to $2.9 billion for Humira and $707 million for Enbrel, state Medicaid programs could save up to $875 million and $214 million, respectively, and federal expenditures on Medicare and military insurance could decrease by up to $726 million and $175 million, respectively, the study estimated.

Payers in every state would benefit. The states with the highest projected savings are Florida, which would see spending reductions of $77 million to $347 million depending on the discount rate scenario and level of market share gain, and Pennsylvania, where the savings could fall between $78 million and $349 million.

“These calculations demonstrate that an environment that successfully fosters biosimilar competition in just these 2 biologic drug classes will generate significant systemic savings that will meaningfully improve the current drug affordability landscape,” Winegarden wrote.

The conservative think tank Pacific Research Institute (PRI) calculated potential biosimilar savings across multiple market share scenarios. 

PRI Estimates Potential Biosimilar Savings in Freer Market Environment

The Center for Biosimilars® spoke with Martin Perry, MBChB, BSc, MMEd, FRCP, Clinical Medical Director for the National Health Service (NHS) in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde region of Scotland about biosimilar savings and access during COVID-19. Perry was a presenter on the topic during the recent Terrapinn Festival of Biologics meeting in Basel, Switzerland. 

Perry oversaw a COVID-19 ward and during this talk with The Center for Biosimilars® Senior Editor Tony Hagen, he explains the challenges of providing treatment for patients. He also sheds light on the United Kingdom's unique system of biosimilar choice and pricing. Access to biosimilars has broadened in the United Kingdom, partly due to the lower cost of these agents; but overall spending on biologics and specialty drugs is on the increase there, as in the United States. 

Perry also addresses switching patients from reference products to biosimilars and patient acceptance. Nocebo, or the potential for patients with poor attitudes toward biosimilars to influence their own outcomes, is a very real concern, Perry explains, underscoring the need for strong educational efforts to support biosimilar use. 

Brexit, or the United Kingdom's separation from the economic apron strings of the European Union, is well along since the beginning of 2021, and this has resulted in "no notable difference" in biosimilar supply, Perry reports. 

The UK continues to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic, and its most recent spike in cases is on the wane; and in the Glasgow/Clyde area the infection rate hasn't been as serious as in the Southeast (London), partly because residents have been more adherent to mask mandates, Perry speculates. Overall, the United Kingdom has seen 1 in 7 residents infected with COVID-19, according to an ongoing 

Perry says many UK residents are now coping with lingering complications of COVID-19, and the NHS is working to address these issues while seeking to reestablish normal services across the health care spectrum. "Currently, we're in a quieter phase in comparison with other stages" of the pandemic, he says. 

Martin Perry, MBChB, BSc, MMEd, FRCP, clinical medical director for the National Health Service in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Scotland, explains frontline care with biosimilars during COVID-19. 

A UK Clinician Discusses Biosimilars in the Time of COVID-19

Dr Yates explains how critical nurse navigation is for all aspects of oncology, which can make explaining clinical and symptom information to patients easier. He said that nurses can be a valuable resource for patients for explaining complicated concepts, especially in regard to treatment selection. Yates also discussed his experience with the nurse navigators at his practice and how patients have an easier time contact them than their providers. Nurse navigators can allow for patients to be more in touch and informed on their care needs between office visits. Yates said it's important for patients receiving oncology therapy to be in contact with health care institutions in some capacity and that nurse navigators can also keep providers informed on any issues the patient is experiencing.

Steven Yates, MD, explains how the relationships that nurses have with patients can influence biosimilar acceptance. 

Dr Steven Yates Weighs How Relationships Between Nurses, Patients Influence Biosimilar Acceptance

Biosimilars in the United States have seen perhaps the greatest uptake in oncology, but the use of biosimilars in oncology has also broadened access, meaning that competitive pricing of these agents, relative to reference products, has enabled more patients to receive treatment, according to a recent study of biosimilar administration at 122 practices by the Community Oncology Alliance (COA).

“A few years ago, when biosimilars were entering the market, several COA practices started using these, and we started to see savings anecdotally within our own organizations,” said Kathy Oubre, MS, CEO of the Pontchartrain Cancer Center in Louisiana and a cochair of the biosimilars committee at COA.

“We as an organization decided to take this a step further and look at this from a broader perspective, with a working hypothesis that biosimilars were going to play an integral part in bringing down health care costs,” she said in a presentation at the COA 2021 Payer Exchange Summit.

For the study of biosimilar use, participating practices submitted data for over 2 million administrations of reference and biosimilar products, and in the analysis, COA focused on rates of biosimilar adoption, administrations, and access to care.

In 2019 there were 68,000 administrations of Rituxan, the originator product for rituximab. The first rituximab biosimilar was Truxima, launched in November 2019, and this accounted for 19% of administrations in the first quarter of 2020.

Biosimilar rituximabs achieved a greater presence in the market with the launch of Ruxience in January 2020, and by the fourth quarter of 2020, rituximab biosimilars accounted for 55% of all rituximab administrations, Oubre said.

There were 112,000 administrations of rituximab in 2020, and 66,000 of those involved the reference product and the remaining 46,000, biosimilars. Oubre said this amounted to an increase of 44,000 administrations from 2019 to 2020, so access to care had sharply improved within the practices included in the study.

In 2019 there were about 23,000 administrations of both reference (Remicade) and biosimilar infliximab, and of those, 20,000 were reference product administrations. At that time, biosimilars accounted for a small percentage of administrations, but the presence of infliximab biosimilars began to grow. In 2020, Remicade administrations added up to 21,000—a 5% increase—but biosimilar administrations were significantly higher, 5000, reflecting growth in biosimilar share of administrations and also an increase in access to care with infliximab, Oubre said.

In 2019, there were about 120,000 administrations of pegfilgrastim, and 100,000 of those represented reference product (Neulasta) administrations. But in 2020, the number of administrations climbed to 139,000 in total, with 98,000 (a decline) being reference drug administrations and 41,000 being biosimilar administrations. “So, quite a large increase,” Oubre said.

“Within our organization [Pontchartrain], biosimilars have offered us a lower-cost alternative without sacrificing any quality for our patients. Therefore, we continue to see increases in access to care,” she said.

The first pegfilgrastim biosimilar entered the market in July 2018 and by the fourth quarter of that year had a 2% share of the market. By the end of 2020, pegfilgrastim biosimilars had a 31% share, Oubre said. There were 4 available biosimilar pegfilgrastims by that point.

The first trastuzumab biosimilar (Kanjinti) was launched in July 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2019, there were roughly 24,000 administrations of trastuzumab, and about 16,000 of those were the reference product (Herceptin), and 8000 were biosimilar administrations.

In 2020, the quarterly administrations overall were about the same, 24,000, but “we noticed tremendous biosimilar uptake, with 65,000 administrations of biosimilars and a significant drop to 29,000 administrations of the originator product,” Oubre said.

“To put a finer point on it, biosimilars accounted for 35% of all the trastuzumab administrations in the fourth quarter of 2019, and that quickly grew to 79% of all administrations by the fourth quarter of 2020,” she said.

It's our working hypothesis that these market shifts are likely a combination of patient acceptance, physician confidence, and a growing demand from patients as well as physicians to find ways to bring down health care costs.

Bevacizumab biosimilars entered the market in July 2019 and in the fourth quarter accounted for 8000 of the overall administrations of this product, vs 21,000 for the reference product (Avastin). In 2020, there were roughly 31,000 administrations of bevacizumab per quarter, which breaks down to roughly 13,000 reference product administrations vs 18,000 biosimilar administrations.

Bevacizumab biosimilars achieved a 29% overall share of administrations in the fourth quarter of 2019 and by the end of 2020 they accounted for a 72% share, Oubre said.

“These market shifts are likely a combination of patient acceptance, physician confidence, and a growing demand from patients as well as physicians to find ways to bring down health care costs,” Oubre said. “Biosimilars offer quality without compromise, and at a cost savings to the patient, physician practice, and the overall health care ecosystem.”

Oubre said that these findings run counter to assertions that biosimilars haven’t delivered on their promise. “Earlier this year there was an 

 in which the author argued that we should throw in the towel on biosimilars. As I hope we have shown you today, that argument is premature.”

Kathy Oubre, MS, a cochair of the biosimilars committee of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), explains findings from a broad study of biosimilar use in oncology practices.  