Adalimumab biosimilar ‘costs more than double’ Humira’s launch price despite discount
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Humira biosimilar Amjevita can cost $1,558 for commercial plans, a discount of 14% compared with Humira’s 2020 net price of $1,812.
- However, Amjevita still costs more than double Humira’s 2003 launch price of $522.
Although the current net price of adalimumab biosimilar Amjevita is lower for commercial health plans than that of the originator, it is nonetheless “more than double” what Humira cost at launch in 2003, according to a research letter.
“When launching Amjevita in January 2023, the first biosimilar adalimumab marketed, Amgen established two versions, one with a list price 55% below Humira and a second with a list price 5% below Humira, with presumably a 50% rebate,” Sean R. Dickson, JD, MPH, of the West Health Policy Center, in Washington, D.C., and colleagues wrote in JAMA Network Open. “To our knowledge, despite the long-anticipated entry of biosimilar adalimumab, no study has quantified net prices faced by payers after rebates for Humira.”
To evaluate what impact the introduction of biosimilars, including Amjevita (adalimumab-atto, Amgen), had on the net prices of the originator drug Humira (adalimumab, AbbVie), specifically for commercial health plans, Dickson and colleagues examined the listed prices for adalimumab from 2013 to 2020. The researchers estimated the annual gross sales of adalimumab in terms of the list price and how many units were sold, and, from that data, found the difference between the net sales as reported by the companies and their estimations.
Included health plans were either commercial in nature or Medicare Part D. Dickson and colleagues accounted for rebates negotiated with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The researchers additionally factored in Medicaid inflation rebates for each version of adalimumab, including citrate-free formulations.
In general, the list price of Humira ballooned from $1,153 in 2013 to $2,784 in 2020, representing an increase of 141%. During the same period, PBM rebates increased from $28 to $973, or from 2.4% to 34.9% of the list price. In all, the average net price for Humira for patient with commercial and Medicare Part D plans rose from $1,125 in 2013 to $1,906 in 2018 — an increase of 69% — but then decreased to $1,812 in 2020.
From 2013 through 2018, the base Medicaid rebate was equal to 23.1% of the list price for Humira. The PBM rebates then exceeded the Medicaid rebates after 2019. According to the researchers, Medicaid rebates for Humira rose from 38.6% of list price in 2013 to 69.6% in 2019, “when total rebates exceeded list price.” These rebates were “considerably lower” for the citrate-free formulation, leading to a “substantially higher” Medicaid net price for this product, the researchers wrote.
“Despite increasing rebates, the net price of Humira faced by commercial and Part D plans in 2020 was $1812, 3.5 times the launch price ($522),” Dickson and colleagues wrote. “In 2023, the lowest-cost formulation of Amjevita had a list price of $1,558, a 14% discount from the 2020 net price of Humira.
“Even at the 55% discount, Amjevita still costs more than double the launch price of Humira,” they added. “These estimations are limited by only being able to compare the 2020 net price of Humira with current Amjevita pricing and by the lack of data to estimate discounts to federal purchasers, which are as a result included under PBM rebates.”
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts