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NICE supports adoption of infliximab biosimilar with new resource

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The UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has recently released a resource to support the adoption of biosimilar infliximab, according to a press release.

“Biosimilars have the potential to offer the [National Health Service] considerable cost savings, especially as biological medicines are often expensive and are often used to treat long-term conditions,” according to the NICE resource.

The resource advises clinicians on how to practically adopt biosimilars into their practice and includes an implementation process for a program to safely switch patients from reference biologics to biosimilars, focusing on the biosimilar versions of infliximab, namely Remsima (Celltrion) and Inflectra (Hospira), according to the release.

The resource also emphasizes how biosimilars can improve health care system sustainability and patient access to expensive biologics using case studies, according to the release. Furthermore, it highlights cost-savings contingent on “appropriate follow-up and monitoring systems,” and reinvestment opportunities that can improve sustainability through “close collaboration and trust between clinicians, hospital management and [clinical commissioning groups], with all parties being appropriately incentivized to deliver high quality patient care and cost savings.”

Inflectra is the first biosimilar monoclonal antibody launched in the UK in February 2015, according to the release.

“Inflectra continues to provide an alternative, potentially more affordable treatment option for people suffering from severe, debilitating diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease while maintaining comparable quality, efficacy and safety to the reference product,” Paul Greenland, vice president of biologics at Hospira, the only U.S. company marketing biosimilars in Europe and Australia, said in the release. In these regions, biosimilars have decreased costs by 20% to 30%, according to the release.

Reference:

NICE. Introducing biosimilar versions of infliximab: Inflectra and Remsima. Available at:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/htta329. Accessed August 17, 2015.

Disclosure: Greenland is an employee of Hospira.