Kalveer Flora, MPharm: Overcoming Hurdles in Switching to Biosimilars
Kalveer Flora, MPharm, London North West University Healthcare National Health Service (NHS) Trust, discusses how the NHS has overcome hurdles related to switching to biosimilars.
Transcript
I think, specific hurdles, and I think we hear this a lot: “Are the biosimilars safe? Are they effective? Are there any side effects?” Having gone through the switches, at each stage, we collected data to show that the biosimilars were just as safe, just as efficacious, worked just as well as the originators.
This mound of evidence helped build confidence at each transition. So our clinicians, our nurses, our pharmacists, our physiotherapists, all of our multidisciplinary team could see that, because we had this wealth of experience, at each stage, they became more confident. So now our consultants wouldn’t even think about having a problem with switching, whereas, in the beginning, we had problems with, “Oh, do they work? What happens if a patient feels that their condition has deteriorated once on it?”
I think, having gone through the process 4 times now, this has helped to build confidence at each level, and now it’s more of a routine thing rather than a new thing.
