Other Biologic Drugs and Biosimilars

[Lawpy]

From Kaiser Health News: Why The U.S. Remains The World’s Most Expensive Market For ‘Biologic’ Drugs

Key differences outlined:

“Governments in Europe have compelled drugmakers to bend on prices and have thrown open the market for so-called biosimilars, which are cheaper copies of biologic drugs made from living organisms. The brand-name products — ranging from Humira for rheumatoid arthritis to Avastin for cancer — are high-priced drugs that account for 40 percent of U.S. pharmaceutical sales.”

“Now, the U.S. government stops short of negotiating and drugmakers with brand-name biologics have used a variety of strategies — from special contracting deals to overlapping patents known as “patent thickets”— to block copycat versions of their drugs from entering the U.S. or gaining market share.”

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[PickleRickelus]

Very interesting article. I do not know a lot about this process but from knowing somebody in the pharmaceutical industry, I do know that it can take upwards of five to ten years for a company to bring a drug to market, having to go through different phase trials and getting final FDA approval. A good amount never even make it to market you also have to take into account the amount of risk these companies make and moving forward with drug development.

With all that time and money spent on r&d and other stringent FDA requirements, you can imagine that the initial costs are staggering and these companies will definitely want some kind of return on their investment for also dealing with the risk of their final product never reach in the market. It's understandable that these companies want patents to recoup some of these hefty startup costs.

I do not agree with some of the price gouging schemes that are mentioned in the article and if it's any indication, it's certainly possible to reach a point where you have competitors driving down the cost of biologics for patients. However, I do understand that there has to be some way for these companies to be financially solvent and also rewarded for innovation.

With that said, I would like to see a study which compares the rate of innovation in drug discovery between US and Europe. if it's discovered that European drug manufacturers bring just as many effective in life-saving drugs to market as their US counterparts and yet still maintain much lower prices for patients, then clearly we are doing it all wrong as in so many other aspects lol. That could potentially add something useful to the conversation.