WHY are biosimilar medicines being introduced?
Medicinal products developed through biotechnology constitute an essential part of medicines available to patients today. They represent approximately 6% of the pharmaceuticals currently marketed and account for more than 9% of total pharmaceutical expenditure. More importantly, ‘a third of products in the development pipeline are biotechnology products. Oncology is the largest area.’ Some major biotechnology-derived medicines are, or will soon, no longer be protected by patents. As for all other medicines when their 20-year patent expires, they will become open to development and manufacture by other companies. This introduces competition on the market which ensures patient access to safe and effective and more affordable biotechnology-derived medicines. Without competition the prices of the originator biotechnology-derived medicines would remain artificially high. Similarly, this competition will serve to stimulate research into new originator medicines. This fact is borne out by the
Medicinal products developed through biotechnology constitute an essential part of medicines available to patients today. They represent approximately 6% of the pharmaceuticals currently marketed and account for more than 9% of total pharmaceutical expenditure. More importantly, “a third of products in the development pipeline are biotechnology products. Oncology is the largest area.” [1] Some major biotechnology-derived medicines are, or will soon, no longer be protected by patents. As for all other medicines when their 20-year patent expires, they will become open to development and manufacture by other companies. This introduces competition on the market which ensures patient access to safe and effective — and more affordable — biotechnology-derived medicines. Without competition the prices of the originator biotechnology-derived medicines would remain artificially high. Similarly, this competition will serve to stimulate research into new originator medicines. This fact is borne ou
