8 November 2018 - The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), the Canadian entity responsible for health technology assessments, has released a new report that explores international policies related to biosimilar and the factors that facilitate their use.

According to CADTH, during 2016, the 30 top-selling biologics in Canada accounted for 24% of all pharmaceutical sales in the country, but 13 biologics could face biosimilar competition in Canada within the next 3 years, with a potential to generate substantial savings. “However, for a health care system to realize these cost savings, successful market uptake of biosimilars will depend on various factors, such as number and timing of entrants into the market, patient and health care provider’s understanding and acceptance of biosimilars versus biologics, cost of biosimilars, pricing policies, payer coverage and utilization policies, and policies around interchangeability and substitution,” wrote CADTH, and the report seeks to identify the international policies best suited to providing a context favorable to biosimilar use.

The report’s authors relied on literature in Medline, Embase, PubMed, and the Cochrane Library, and present findings on 4 postmarket-related policies for the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Read Center for Biosimilars article