17 May 2016 - They are likely to be cost effective.

The United Kingdom has lagged behind other European countries in adopting biosimilars, said a recent article in the Financial Times, and a British Biosimilars Association has been launched “to promote medicines that could shave a third off NHS prices.” The UK’s chief pharmaceutical officer was quoted as saying that “biosimilar medicines have enormous potential to deliver increased patient access, as well as savings to the NHS, which can be reinvested elsewhere.”

Biological products (“biologics”) include vaccines, blood and blood components, somatic cells, tissues (such as corneas, skin, and spermatozoa), and recombinant proteins. They can be composed of sugars (such as heparin), proteins (monoclonal antibodies), nucleic acids (antisense oligonucleotides), or combinations of these (fusion proteins), but their precise structures are often not easily characterised.

For more details, go to: http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2721?etoc=