VIDEO: OK to switch patients with IBD from biologic to biosimilar ‘at any given time’
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In this Healio video exclusive, Michael V. Chiorean, MD, explains that physicians can safely and “with confidence” switch patients with inflammatory bowel disease from an originator biologic to a biosimilar at any point during treatment.
“We can now say with confidence, while certainly this isn’t necessarily the way most of us practice, that you can switch to a biosimilar at any given time, during induction and/or maintenance and unrelated to the disease activity at the time of switching,” Chiorean, co-director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, told Healio.
According to Chiorean, most earlier studies that evaluated switching patients to biosimilars focused on patients with stable disease; however, as researchers learned more about the safety of switching these patients, they investigated the safety of switching “without the blessing of the provider” in all disease states.
Research demonstrated no differences in drug pharmacokinetics or clinical activities before and after switching to a biosimilar, he noted.
“I can see where most providers will be more comfortable switching patients who are stable or have disease under control, but remember that there are unique circumstances,” Chiorean said. “Some of those cases are situations where if we start a biologic in the hospital in a patient with severe disease — usually an infusion of a biologic — the outpatient pharmacy may cover a different version of that biologic, so a different biosimilar may be used in the outpatient space.”
This type of transition would be of no concern, he said, regardless of how many doses of biologic were received as an inpatient.
When discussing the decision to switch to a biosimilar, Chiorean reminds his patients that “truly they are receiving the same drug [just] under a different brand name.”
As biologic drugs continue to revolutionize the treatment approach to IBD, Chiorean said physicians should expect greater access to biosimilars and improved quality of care.
“The one unquestionable advantage of biosimilars is that they will eventually reduce costs of care through competition,” he said. “As the price of these effective therapies goes down, we are likely to see improved access and with that we’re hoping to see better disease control and improved outcomes in our patients who often have severe and debilitating disease.”
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Chiorean M. How to Guide: Biosimilars in the treatment of IBD: Just switch & swap? Presented at: GUILD Conference; Feb. 18-21, 2024 (hybrid meeting).
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