5 May 2016 - Price increases of brand-name medicines are diminishing expected savings from biosimilars, adding to pressure on overall health costs.

Generic drugs have long delivered huge savings over their brand-name counterparts. That isn’t likely to happen, though, with knockoff versions of some of the expensive drugs on the market today.

Rival versions of so-called biotech drugs, called biosimilars, are just starting to be released, and health insurers and drug-benefit managers say they expect them to cost nearly as much as the brand-name originals did for years.

One big reason: Pharmaceutical companies have been raising prices on biotech drugs about to lose patent protection to squeeze out more revenue before competition arrives, according to insurers, drug-benefit managers and pharmaceutical-industry consultants. And makers of the knockoffs are setting their prices just below those marked-up ones.

For more details, go to: http://www.wsj.com/articles/knockoffs-of-biotech-drugs-bring-paltry-savings-1462458209