20 January 2020 - Improving access to fairly priced, quality-assured generics and biosimilars is essential to realizing the potential public health and cost-saving benefits of these drugs, according to an editorial published in The BMJ, which also lays out strategies to achieve this goal.

In the publication, the authors point out that achieving universal health coverage requires universal access to safe, effective, quality-assured, and affordable drugs and vaccines, and they highlight the role of generics and biosimilars. The authors cite increasing trust in generics and biosimilars, as well as incentivising the use of these lower-cost options, as needed improvements. 

However, they also acknowledge biosimilars have not realized the cost advantages currently associated with generics, at least in part due to the complex production processes and more extensive regulatory requirements biosimilars need for approval compared with generics.

Read Center for Biosimilars article