16 May 2016 - Payers and decision makers need to think medium/long term if they want to achieve significant, sustained savings from use of biosimilars.

The term ‘biosimilar’ refers to an alternative similar version of an off-patent innovative originator biotechnology product (the ‘reference product’). Several biosimilars have been approved in Europe, and a number of top-selling biological medicines have lost, or will lose, patent protection over the next 5 years. We look at the experience in Europe so far. The USA has finally implemented a regulatory route for biosimilar approval.

We recommend that European and US governments and payers take a strategic approach to get value for money from the use of biosimilars by (1) supporting and incentivising generation of high-quality comprehensive outcomes data on the effectiveness and safety of biosimilars and originator products; and (2) ensuring that incentives are in place for budget holders to benefit from price competition.

For more details, go to: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40273-015-0380-x?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals