Policy

Although a complete response letter (CRL) is not an official rejection letter, it can result in approval delays by listing out shortcomings in an application and giving companies an opportunity to respond. In his latest column, Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, goes over how companies can avoid these approval postponements.

Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, MD, JD, principal deputy center director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a keynote presentation at Access 2023 on how the Biosimilar User Fee Act and the Generic Drug User Fee Act have developed over the last year.

Panelists at the annual meeting of the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA) offered insight into the current state of the global biosimilar and generic markets and why government agencies need to leverage these medicines to address challenges in the pharmaceutical space.

In theory, by offering a lower-cost treatment option, biosimilars would help drive access for countless patients who simply could not afford the brand-name biologic. However, biosimilars have also encountered the harsh realities of the US health care system and its market forces.

COVID-19 allowed governments to critically examine the biopharma space to increase access to vaccines, but there's still a way to go, according to Monique Mansoura, PhD, MBA, executive director of global health security and biotechnology at the MITRE Corporation, at the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association’s annual meeting.

Alex Jung and Kim Dwyer, both members of the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH) board of directors, discuss why employers should be ready for the explosion of biosimilars entering the market, and how they can prepare.

Two presentations and a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Association for Accessible Medicines (Access 2023) went over the current state of biosimilar uptake and the factors that help determine whether a biosimilar will experience good adoption rates.

Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, goes over some misconceptions surrounding biosimilar adoption as well as some national efforts to make biosimilar uptake easier and biosimilar development more economically efficient.

Geoff Biegler, JD, a principal at Fish & Richardson, an intellectual property law firm, expands on his presentation on biosimilar legal challenges throughout 2022, providing insight on the inner workings of the patent dance and how a Supreme Court decision could have an impact on future cases.

A real-world study assessing the aftermath of Denmark implementing a nationwide mandatory switch from one infliximab to another found strong treatment retention rates, demonstrating the safety and tolerability of biosimilar-to-biosimilar switching.

The FDA published its research roadmap as part of the Biosimilars User Fee Act III regulatory research pilot program. The roadmap will allow stakeholders to see how the program will help the FDA enhance regulatory decision-making surrounding biosimilar development.

Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, explains the FDA's changes to the drug review process, the significance of each change, and the published pieces of work that helped inform the FDA's decisions.

IQVIA’s Global Use of Medicines Report for 2023 has revealed increased uptake of biosimilars around the world and predicted that biosimilars could generate nearly $300 billion in savings by 2027.

A new report from HHS has revealed that if the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) had been implemented in 2020, Medicare Part D beneficiaries could have saved a total of $734 million, averaging out to about $500 per member.

Sophia Z. Humphreys, PharmD, MHA, BCBBS, of Sutter Health in Sacramento, California, details the regulatory decisions from 2022, what's to come in 2023, and how the US biosimilars market is expected to shift over the next 5 years.

Patent litigators from Fish & Richardson, an intellectual property law firm, regaled audiences during a webinar covering all the big biosimilar regulatory and legal decisions throughout 2022, including updates on patent disputes and antitrust investigations.

A study assessing uptake rates and prices of biosimilars found that while the United States had significantly higher prices, the uptake in Germany and Switzerland, 2 European countries with national mechanisms for drug price negotiation, was slower.

Chelsee Jensen, PharmD, pharmaceutical formulary manager at the Mayo Clinic, explains what health organizations and health systems can do to better manage and instill confidence in biosimilars.

Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, summarizes some of the lessons that the entire biosimilar industry can take away from 2022, including what new legislation and policy changes could mean for future biosimilar development.

Over 2 years after a cabinet vote to establish a biosimilar switching policy, the Ontario government is putting one in place, making it the seventh province and eighth jurisdiction in Canada to do so.

In his newest column, Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, looks into the domestic and international support for removing interchangeability for biosimilars in the United States.

The Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs (ACMA) is launching a new program for health care professionals to become Board Certified Biologics and Biosimilars Specialists.

Now that the world population has reached 8 billion, Ivo Abraham, PhD, chief scientist of Matrix45 and a professor at the University of Arizona, took a look at how high-income countries can increase accessibility to livesaving medicines to the 7 billion people who have limited access to biosimilars.

The VOLTAIRE-X randomized controlled trial determined the adalimumab biosimilar BI 695501 (adalimumab-adbm, Cyltezo; Boehringer Ingelheim) met the FDA’s criteria to be designated as interchangeable with the reference product (Humira).

The FDA has granted Eli Lilly’s long-acting insulin glargine biosimilar, Rezvoglar, an interchangeability designation, making it the second interchangeable insulin biosimilar in the United States.

The Biosimilar Red Tape Elimination Act will seek to increase patient access to biosimilars by reducing switching study requirements for companies to obtain interchangeability designations.

Organon Canada launches 2 biosimilars referencing Avastin (bevacizumab) and Herceptin (trastuzumab), China became the first country to approve a denosumab biosimilar, and Optum Rx, a large pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), said that it will add adalimumab biosimilars to formulary.

If every adalimumab biosimilar had an interchangeability designation, the United States could save additional $765 million annually, according to calculations from 3 biosimilar experts.

Craig Burton, senior vice president of policy and strategic alliances at the Association for Accessible Medicines and executive director of the Biosimilars Council, gives insight into the many health policies that the Biden administration has implemented in 2022 as well as their possible impact on biosimilar adoption.

Sarfaraz K. Niazi, PhD, dived into the benefits of the FDA's recently announced Biosimilar Regulatory Science Program, which is expected to help progress biosimilar development and simplify evaluations for interchangeability status.