Topics: Biosimilars and Reimbursement Physician Information Specialty: Specialty Pharmaceuticals Location: Alexandria, VA
Highlights
“As for the feedback in terms of the volume, if you tell me twenty percent in a price reduction, then you might not sell an aggressive campaign in terms of product prioritization, step therapy, those type of formulary management tools. You don’t want to interrupt tradition.” “Twenty percent might not be exciting enough. It would have to be more. Again, that’s is an assessment between my peers and myself, that “is it really worth it at that point?” Now, if that twenty percent … If that means a hundred and fifty million dollars [as a result of] some of the formulary tools and restrictions around the name [brand], that would help the biosimilars be the part of the first treatment.”
We’re currently interested in how reimbursement affects the uptake and price of biosimilars. Could you tell me a little bit more about your expertise in that area?
There’s some medical education that needs to happen from FDA perspective. There are still some guidelines to be defined by FDA, in terms of interchangeability. However, your question is around pricing. There are multiple things that are going on.
Obviously, biosimilars are expected to be thirty to fifty or even twenty to fifty percent cheaper than the branded drugs. There are a couple of molecules on the way that are actually sixty percent cheaper than the brand drugs. Your question, again, around pricing; if you’re the payer you are definitely looking to get it as discounted as possible. Then of course you want to make sure about the product classification: Is it biosimilar? Is it biobetter? Is it interchangeable?
As for the feedback in terms of the volume, if you tell me twenty percent in a price reduction, then you might not sell an aggressive campaign in terms of product prioritization, step therapy, those type of formulary management tools. You don’t want to interrupt tradition. There’s too much introduction for end care and physician education and things like that. However, if it’s larger, then there has to be some cost analysis to be done.