Promoting Informed Decision-Making Through Biosimilar Awareness

Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN, director of the Center for Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic Research at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, offered insight on how to effectively engage with patient advocacy groups to address concerns regarding biosimilars in an interview with The Center for Biosimilars®.

Abraham suggests combining information for patient advocacy organizations so they are educated on certain drugs and drug classes because this will promote a greater awareness about biosimilars.

This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Patients often have concerns regarding biosimilars. How can we effectively engage patient advocacy groups to address these concerns and promote informed decision-making?

Well, patient advocacy organizations obviously have an enormous role here. We need to make a distinction here between clinically based patient advocacy organizations—let's say, patient advocacy organizations for leukemia patients—vs more general population advocacy organizations.

The diagnosis- or disease-based patient advocacy organizations are in a dilemma because a good part of their budget comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and that's good that pharma supports that, but it comes with some strings attached.

What if the manufacturer of a reference product or from an originator is one of your great benefactors, has more money to spend, and then you have a midsize—let alone a small—biosimilar company who cannot provide the level of financial support to patient advocacy organizations?

There, I think we need to work with patient advocacy organizations on bundling the information that patients need to know and bundling it in first instance about what a drug or class of drugs does.

Now there's choices and your insurer may make the choice, the decision for you in terms of what is covered. More generally I think we will see greater awareness, we're already seeing it in patient advocacy organizations with regard to biosimilars.