Biosimilars

Tesh Khullar, senior vice president & advisor, Flatiron Health, discusses the first to anticancer biosimilars having recently entered the market.

From the Center for Biosimilars®, a discussion on giving patients new, less expensive alternatives for managing diabetes.

From The Center for Biosimilars®, a discussion of a regulatory change coming in 2020: Insulins have always been biologics from a scientific perspective, and the products themselves will not change as a result of bringing them under regulation as biologics as a matter of law. However, labeling for these products will change.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

This week, the top managed care stories included CMS giving chimeric antigen receptor T-cell payments a boost; a US task force announcing that those at risk for pancreatic cancer should be screened; FDA revealing Novartis withheld data about a high-cost gene therapy.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Research on biosimilars presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

During ISPOR 2019 annual meeting, a session featured biosimilar experts who reviewed the current state of affairs and various challenges related to uptake, while also sounding some notes of optimism.

Nearly 700 people at California State University and the University of California, both in Los Angeles, were still in quarantine over the weekend after possibly being exposed to measles; the world’s largest seller of cancer drugs, pharma company Roche Holding AG, will lose its top spot with competition from lower-cost drugs, namely biosimilars; findings from a new study showed that blood pressure regulation at or below 130/80 mm Hg lowered the risk of heart attack, stroke, or other complications in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Policy updates from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's annual meeting.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

At the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC)'s 45th Annual Meeting & Cancer Center Business Summit, Ali McBride, PharmD, MS, BCPS, BCOP, clinical coordinator of hematology/oncology in the Department of Pharmacy at The University of Arizona Cancer Center and president of ACCC, discussed the role of biosimilars in oncology and how familiar oncologists and their teams are with them.

Although there is still a need for more education around the use of biosimilars in cancer, it seems oncologists have become more knowledgeable in the past few years, said Gary H. Lyman, MD, MPH, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Health Canada announced that all biologics, including biosimilars, will be identified by their brand names and nonproprietary names without the addition of a product-specific suffix; a boom in the use of connected health and fitness monitors that are connected to insurance plans and employers is providing an increasingly valuable source of workforce health intelligence, raising privacy concerns, and adding a new dimension to the worker-employer relationship; as the number of spare embryos from in vitro fertilization rises, giving birth with donated embryos is becoming more popular, although many of the agencies that provide donated embryos are supported by federal funds and restrict whom they help.

Presumed 2020 presidential candidates are trying to stake a claim to one of healthcare’s main concerns—surging prescription drug prices; enrollment in Idaho's health insurance exchange is expected to drop by 20% due to Medicaid expansion; employer groups can help overcome barriers, such as patient fears and misinformation, and create confidence about using biosimilars.

Despite their growing prevalence, there is still a lack of biosimilar education amongst stakeholders, said Robert Rifkin, MD, FACP, medical director, biosimilars and associate chair, hematology research, McKesson Specialty Health.

Updates from the annual ASH meeting, December 2018.

A review of thousands of FDA inspection records, recalls, warning letters, and lawsuits showed how drugs that are poorly manufactured or contaminated can reach patients; biosimilars have the potential to deliver substantial savings to the healthcare system, but only insofar as they are adopted and used in clinical practice; Maine’s new Democratic Governor, Janet Mills, ordered the state to implement Medicaid expansion with an executive order, calling for state health officials to make the necessary changes and work with the Trump administration.

The year 2018 was a banner year for biosimilars, with the number of FDA-approved biosimilar products nearly doubling, and with major policy, business, and regulatory developments that moved the biosimilars marketplace forward. Here are 5 of the top developments in biosimilars for the past year, as reported by The Center for Biosimilars®, a sister site of The American Journal of Managed Care®.

The House has passed a bill that would support state efforts to investigate pregnancy-related deaths and research how to prevent future deaths; a column in The New York Times examined 4 specific drug pricing policies and had 3 health policy experts weigh in on what the outcomes of implementing these policies could be; despite the benefits of using biosimilar filgrastim, the United States has lagged behind other countries in adopting the therapy.

https://www.pharmacytimes.org/on-demand/an-american-journal-of-managed-care-supplement-managing-costs-and-advancements-in-biosimilars

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

A generic competitor to the EpiPen will not cost any less than the version that is already on the market; a new service from Amazon will use machine learning to pull key information from patient records; a new report from the European Commission has noted that generic and biosimilar products will be key to curbing wasteful spending in healthcare.

According to a review published in Cancer Management and Research, biosimilar products present a viable cost-saving tool for providers participating in value-based care programs such as the Medicare Shared Savings Program or the Oncology Care Model.