Policy

NHS Improvement, the body that oversees the financial stability, quality, and operational performance of England’s National Health Service (NHS) trusts, reports that switching patients to biosimilars and generics of high-cost drugs led to £324 million ($424 million) in savings in the last financial year, and that it could benefit from an additional £100 million ($131 million) in savings this financial year from greater biosimilar use.

The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) has released the 10th edition of its annual Generic Drug Access and Savings Report that provides an outline of the savings generated by generics and biosimilars in the past year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has produced a draft Question and Answer (Q&A) document that gives additional clarification to its 2009 guidelines for evaluating similar biotherapeutic products, particularly with respect to evaluating biosimilars of monoclonal antibodies.

This month, the Maine legislature authorized a bill titled “An Act to Require Drug Manufacturers to Comply with Federal Law,” or 2017 ME S 432, which seeks to combat the misuse of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) programs within the state.

This week, a federal appeals court declined to hear a petition to rehear a challenge by the Association for Accessible Medicines to a Maryland drug pricing law.

The Center for Biosimilars® recaps the top 5 articles for the week of July 23, 2018.

“It’s one thing for us to get the biosimilar approved and go through all of that,” said Juliana M. Reed, corporate affairs global biosimilars lead for Pfizer. “That was the early conversation of the market developing. Now the market needs to be accessible.”

On the whole, the FDA’s plan, says Robert Cerwinski, JD, is “net good news for the biosimilar developers,” and should provide “tailwinds” for the industry by giving greater clarity, streamlining processes, and reducing the time and expense that biosimilar developers will need to bring their products to the marketplace.

Yesterday, Congressman John Sarbanes, D-Maryland, introduced the Biosimilars Competition Act of 2018 in the United States House of Representatives. The bill would require biologic and biosimilar drug manufacturers to report any agreements they enter into that may keep lower-cost drugs from reaching consumers.

According to the report, Medicare Part D drugs that demonstrated the lowest annual cost increases offered higher average rebates than drugs with the highest annual cost increases.

Last week, drug manufacturer Merck announced that it will be taking part in several strategies to establish “responsible pricing” going forward, joining the ranks of some of the latest companies taking similar actions, including Novartis and Pfizer.

On July 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in the case of the St Regis Mohawk Tribe v Mylan Pharmaceuticals that sovereign immunity does not extend to inter partes review (IPR) proceedings.

After the release of the FDA’s Biosimilar Action Plan this week, many industry stakeholders have spoken out on the actions being taken by the FDA to further competition and increase biosimilar uptake.

Catch up on the week’s top policy, clinical, business, regulatory, legal, and international news from the world of biosimilars.

This week, the Trump administration made a pair of significant policy advancements related to its ongoing efforts to reduce the price of drugs for American patients.

In its comments, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) stressed that safe and effective treatments should be accessible to all patients at the lowest cost possible, and this mindset should be the fundamental basis for any drug-pricing policy.

The industry group representing generic and biosimilar manufacturers has issued a new report that claims that Ireland’s policies are keeping the nation from benefitting from €25 million (approximately $29 million) in annual savings to its national health system.

During a speech given today in Washington, DC, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, announced the release of the long-awaited Biosimilar Action Plan.

“This is a crucial moment for the growth of biosimilars in the United States, and we are encouraged that HHS is committed to pursuing policies that reward innovation and support provider and patient access and choice,” said Juliana M. Reed, president of the Biosimilars Forum.

An analysis by consumer website GoodRx concluded that the price people pay for generic drugs at the pharmacy varies greatly based on where they live.

The FDA recently released a draft guidance document entitled “Assessing User Fees Under the Biosimilar User Fee Amendments of 2017.” The guidance is meant to address various industry inquiries around the implementation of the Biosimilar User Fee Amendments II (BsUFA II).

Catch up on the week’s top rheumatology, gastroenterology, clinical practice, regulatory, policy, and business news from the world of biosimilars.

The new rule imposes a 10% fee-for-service cut on any provider who doesn’t opt into a managed-care network, and rural hospitals are especially concerned about the financial losses the change may cause.

Last week, the European Specialist Nurses Organisations (ESNO) released a document aimed at assisting nurses in the management of switching a patient from a reference biologic to a biosimilar.

While managing costs is extremely important to physicians and their patients, achieving and maintaining disease control without increasing the risk of complications or toxicities must remain the primary goal in the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases.

Here are the top 5 biosimilars articles for the week of June 25.

Research presented at the European League Against Rheumatism’s Annual European Congress of Rheumatology concluded that patients’ attitudes and level of satisfaction with switching to a biosimilar for etanercept or infliximab was associated with their level of health literacy, defined as being given sufficient and necessary information concerning their health.

Although no biosimilar has earned an interchangeable designation by the FDA to date, the distinction could garner more biosimilar uptake. In a presentation during the American Conference Institute’s Summit on Biosimilars, held June 25-27 in New York, New York, various stakeholders discussed how interchangeability is the future of the space.

Isaac Ashkenazi, partner at Paul Hastings LLP; Gregory Morris, PhD, partner and leader of life sciences litigation at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP; and John Molenda, PhD, partner and co-chair of Healthcare & Life Sciences practice at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, discussed current “hot button” litigation issues in the biosimilar sphere during the American Conference Institute’s Summit on Biosimilars, held June 25-27.

At the American Conference Institute (ACI)’s Summit on Biosimilars Conference, held June 25-27 in New York, New York, panelists Crystal Kuntz, vice president of healthcare policy and research at Biotechnology Innovation Organization, and David Korn, vice president of intellectual property and law at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, provided an overview of recent policy and legislative updates in regard to biosimilars.