Biosimilar

Biosimilar use among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries seems to depend most on practice setting and hospital ownership status, with few patient or physician characteristics linked to usage, according to data in JAMA Network Open.

Kashyap Patel, MD, has been elected president of Community Oncology Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group that serves community oncology practices and their patients.

The FDA approved rituximab-arrx for multiple indications.

Bringing down the prices of biosimilars in the United States will be a tricky balance. On one hand, you want to be able to make these drugs available to every patient who needs them. On the other hand, just lowering the prices artificially through legislation could stunt innovation and disincentivize companies from bringing these drugs to market.

More than 5 years after the first FDA approval of a biosimilar, the U.S. health care system has yet to realize the full potential of these products to reduce drug costs and increase access to hematology/oncology treatments.

The European Commission has extended approval for Celltrion Healthcare’s subcutaneous infliximab biosimilar to treat adults with ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis.

The European Medicines Agency approved the first biosimilar in Europe in 2006. It was almost 10 years before the United States followed. Despite potential savings for payers and patients, biosimilar uptake in the U.S. remains limited.

At our center, metrics obtained through our participation in CMS’s Oncology Care Model have allowed us to improve patient experience scores, reduce ED utilization and hospital admission, and impact several other measures of quality care.

The FDA has approved the sixth biosimilar to adalimumab, adalimumab-fkjp, for all eligible indications of the biologic product, according to a company press release.

A U.S. appeals court has ruled in favor of two patents for Amgen’s etanercept against the biosimilar etanercept-szzs from Novartis’ Sandoz, upholding a prior decision validating claims of patent infringement.