10 June 2019 - Biosimilar drugs are intended by their developers to provide a cost-saving alternative to brand-name biologics, and real-world data are becoming more numerous on the savings associated with biosimilars. 

However, some reports are conflicting with respect to increased healthcare resource utilisation or costs related to non-medical switching. A systematic literature review published this month in Advances in Therapy reported on the impact of non-medical switching to biosimilars, and it concluded that the full economic impact of switching remains “uncertain.”

In the study, which was funded by AbbVie, maker of the brand-name adalimumab (Humira), researchers conducted a review to identify data on healthcare resource utilisation and costs associated with non-medical switches, and drew upon published material available in PubMed and EMBASE (published between 2008 and 2018), as well as proceedings from major medical conferences (including the American College of Rheumatology, the American Society of Hematology, the American Diabetes Association, and others) from 2014 to 2018.

Read Center for Biosimilars article