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As Humira Biosimilars Arrive, Battle Lines Shift From Education To Sustainability

 
• By Melanie Senior

This month a handful of biosimilars of the world’s top-selling drug, Humira (adalimumab), are due to launch in Europe. They will not topple the $18 billion behemoth. But they will do some damage, as Europe’s cash-strapped payers ready themselves to embrace these cheaper lookalikes. 

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Sustainability is now the key question around biosimilars in Europe • Source: Gayle Rembold Furbert

Over a decade since the first biosimilar was approved in Europe, these near-copies of large molecule drugs have taken hold. Physician confidence has grown as evidence accumulates to show biosimilars’ equivalence to branded originals. Payers are saving money. Prices of medicines that can cost many tens of thousands of dollars per patient per year are falling by between 40-80% in some markets. And the savings are rolling in faster with each new biosimilar launch: Europe’s first complex biosimilar, infliximab (a copy of Merck & Co. Inc./Johnson & Johnson’s TNF-blocker Remicade, used in a range of inflammatory conditions), took a couple of years after its 2015 launch to get off the ground. Biosimilar versions of Roche’s cancer and rheumatoid arthritis treatment MabThera (rituximab), however, launched in 2017, captured almost 40% volume share in Europe within a year. In the UK, that share is now over 80%, according to IQVIA. (Also see "Biosimilar Remicade Will Pit Rising Cost Pressures Against Prescriber Caution" - In Vivo, 15 May, 2013.)

Exhibit 1. 

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