Interviews

Julie M. Reed, the executive director of the Biosimilars Forum, explains what needs to be done to ensure progress on biosimilar legislation and lower drug prices.

Gillian Woollett, MA, DPhil, vice president and head of regulatory strategy and policy at Samsung Bioepis, outlines how concerns over the safety and efficacy of biosimilars has shifted and what new concerns the industry is focusing on.

The use of bevacizumab products for ophthalmic conditions will continue to evolve as the market grows. However, off-label usage will likely be the norm, according to Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA, vice president of biosimilars at Cardinal Health, at Asembia’s Specialty Pharmacy Summit.

Altering reimbursement procedures needs to become a bigger priority for government officials to incentivize biosimilar utilization, according to Eric Tichy, PharmD, MBA, vice chair of pharmacy formulary at the Mayo Clinic Health System.

Julie M. Reed, the executive director of the Biosimilars Forum, discusses how biosimilar savings can differ between stakeholders and the importance of competition for creating those savings.

Amy Valley, vice president of clinical strategy and technology solutions at Cardinal Health, details the company's Decision Pathway, a health information technology (IT) tool that can assist practices with prescribing patients the lowest-cost product, including biosimilars.

Although the United States is looking to be one of the first countries to market an ophthalmology biosimilar, more education is needed to convince ophthalmologists of the safety and efficacy of biosimilars, said Cardinal Health's Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA.

The main takeaway from the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on HHS's 2023 budget was that biosimilars were not mentioned as much as they should have been, said Julie M. Reed of the Biosimilars Forum.

Eric Tichy, PharmD, MBA, vice chair of pharmacy formulary at the Mayo Clinic Health System, discusses the importance of state legislation to boost biosimilar access and uptake.

Jeffrey Casberg, vice president of pharmacy at IPD Analytics, discusses the Alvotech/AbbVie settlement for an adalimumab biosimilar and whether it will impact future patent lawsuits.

Jeffrey Casberg, vice president of pharmacy at IPD Analytics, weighs in on the factors he thinks will most affect market share among adalimumab biosimilars when they enter the US market in 2023.

Chelsee Jensen, PharmD, and Eric Tichy, PharmD, MBA, who coauthored a paper on the Mayo Clinic's success with implementing biosimilars, discuss their study and how their practice is expected to evolve to improve its approach.

Gillian Woollett, MA, Dphil, vice president and head of regulatory strategy and policy at Samsung Bioepis, explains why there's no easy to solution to getting the US biosimilar market to the same level as Europe.

Jeffrey Casberg, vice president of pharmacy at IPD Analytics, previews his sessions about the new and emerging pharmaceutical products coming down the pipeline at the upcoming Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) annual meeting.

Kathy Oubre, MS, chief executive officer of Pontchartrain Cancer Center, explains the progress she has seen regarding biosimilar utilization and acceptance.

Gillian Woollett, MA, Dphil, vice president and head of regulatory strategy and policy at Samsung Bioepis, reviews some of the presentations, including her own, from the Festival of Biologics conference.

Kathy Oubre, MS, chief operating officer of Pontchartrain Cancer Center, previews her upcoming presentations at the Festival of Biologics conference.

Improving access and getting big legislative changes for biosimilars passed are just some of the many plans that Julie M. Reed, the new executive director of the Biosimilars Forum, has for the organization.

Julie M. Reed, the new executive director of the Biosimilars Forum, gives a timeline of her career in the biosimilars space and what led her to be one of the founders of the organization.

As chief science policy officer for Global Healthy Living Foundation, Robert Popovian, PharmD, MS, has a bird’s-eye view of some of the central issues of biosimilar access in the United States.

Wayne Winegarden, PhD, a senior fellow in business and economics at Pacific Research Institute, discusses his predictions for etanercept and adalimumab biosimilar pricing and why he hopes manufacturers will offer them at large discounts to reference biologics.

Karen van Caulil, PhD, president and CEO at Florida Alliance for Healthcare Value, discusses the difficulty her institution has had in getting providers and employers to switch to biosimilars.

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

Steven Yates, MD, discusses Intermountain Healthcare's policies surrounding switching patients from reference products to biosimilars.

Ali Ahmed, senior vice president of biosimilars for Fresenius Kabi USA discusses FDA review of the company’s Stimufend pegfilgrastim biosimilar candidate and the marketing of this product.

Two AmerisourceBergen/Xcenda policy experts discuss the coming wave of pharmacy benefit biosimilars, formulary decisions, pricing transparency, and the Biden Administration’s push for lower-cost biologics.

Reimbursement concerns and the uncertainty of how interchangeability will impact biosimilar adoption are hot-button issues in the biosimilar space, Cate Lockhart, PharmD, PhD, MS, explains in this interview.

Ivo Abraham, PhD, a professor with University of Arizona Health Sciences in the Department of Pharmacy Practice, outlines the current trajectory and savings potential for granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) biosimilars and Neulasta Onpro (pegfilgrastim).

Kirollos Hanna, PharmD, from the University of Minnesota Medical Center, talks about the savings that biosimilars have brought to his practice and how he tackles patient and physician concerns over whether biosimilars work as well as reference products.

Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA, the vice president of Biosimilars at Cardinal Health, discussed the many ways that pharmacists and interchangeability designations can affect biosimilar utilization.