April 24th 2024
Two posters from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) annual meeting explore how an interchangeable insulin glargine biosimilar plays into Medicaid budgets and the top factors driving access to biosimilars.
Biosimilar Promotion Should Be Targeted, Constructive
April 9th 2020Biosimilar companies may do themselves a disservice if they produce education materials that don’t address the needs of clinicians or blatently self-promote, according to Kathy Oubre, chief operations officer at Pontchartrain Cancer Center of Louisiana.
Investigators Recommend a More Systematic Effort to Get Biosimilars Adopted
March 25th 2020A gentle, persuasive effort to get patients and physicians to adopt biosimilars is likely to work better than a heavy-handed approach, say Canadian investigators, who recommend more study of how mindsets and prescribing practices are changed.
Patel: Biosimilar Education Can Be Challenging
March 21st 2020Kashyap B. Patel, MD, has worn many hats in the struggle to broaden biosimilar access. He is an independent oncology practitioner, a member of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), and a representative of International Oncology Network (ION) Solutions, a large drug purchasing organization. Bringing biosimilars to a broader population of patients has involved negotiations with payers, persistence on Capitol Hill, and education, he explains in an interview.
2019 Saw Mounting Evidence to Support Nonmedical Switching, Review Article Says
February 21st 2020A recent year-in-review article outlines studies published in 2019 about nonmedical switching from originator biologics to biosimilars in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and axial spondyloarthritis.
What Are the Factors for Starting Anti-TNF Inhibitor Biosimilars in RA and AS?
February 11th 2020The study aimed to provide insight into the real-world patterns of biosimilar initiation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in Korea by identifying patient characteristics and other factors associated with starting biosimilars using a logistic regression model.
Reference-Based Drug Pricing Shifts Mix of Therapies, Lowers Prices Paid, Study Finds
February 5th 2020Reference pricing may shift the mix of drugs dispensed from those offering the highest rebates to pharmacy benefit managers to those offering the lowest prices to employers and employees, according to a new study published Wednesday.
Nocebo Effect May Have Role in Some Treatment Failures, Adverse Events in Nonmedical Switching
January 29th 2020Researchers reviewed randomized controlled trials and real-world evidence studies on nonmedical switching; that is, switching patients who are doing well on their current originator therapy to a biosimilar.
Study Suggests CPT-13 Comparable to Infliximab at Lower Cost in Patients With IBD
January 18th 2020The biosimilar CPT-13 (Remsima) is currently approved in Europe for all uses for which the originator infliximab (Remicade) is approved, including Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), which are often referred to collectively as IBD.
Survey Finds Asian Gastroenterologists Report Less Confidence in Biosimilars
January 8th 2020Just 6% of the Asian doctors said they felt confident using biosimilars in clinical practice. A survey of European doctors found a similar confidence level in 2013, but that level had climbed to 28.8% by 2015.
Low-Dose Rituximab May Be Cost-Effective for Myasthenia Gravis
December 28th 2019Autoimmune myasthenia gravis is typically treated with surgery, acetylcholine esterase inhibitors, corticosteroids, and immunosuppressive drugs like azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil. Some patients have refractory disease and may require therapies like eculizumab (Soliris), which, while effective, is a particularly high-cost biologic that has no approved biosimilars in Europe or the United States, although biosimilars are advancing through clinical development. Rituximab, however, which is lower-cost than eculizumab and has multiple approved biosimilars, has also emerged as a promising treatment.
Switching Back to Reference Infliximab From Biosimilar Appears Effective for Patients With IBD
December 27th 2019At the United European Gastroenterology Week 2019, held in Barcelona, Spain, earlier this year, a research team from the Netherlands reported on the prevalence of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) switching back to the reference infliximab after a previous switch to biosimilar CT-P13, and found that switching back appeared to be effective in patients with IBD.
A Large Proportion of Suboptimal Responders With Axial Spondyloarthritis Remain on Anti-TNF Agents
December 23rd 2019At 6 months and 1 year, respectively, survival rates among the suboptimal responders who stayed on their index anti–tumor necrosis factor (anti-TNF) agent were 90.2% and 85.1%, respectively.