Rheumatology > > Arthritis– Leading adalimumab brand name still controls market, however net costs plunged
by John Gever, Contributing Writer, MedPage Today December 13, 2024
Intro of biosimilars for the rheumatology drug adalimumab, whose initial top quality variation Humira has actually long been a smash hit, appears to have actually caused a remarkable drop in net costs for these items– despite the fact that biosimilars hardly dented Humira prescription rates.
Analysis of prescriptions and sales figures for 2023– the very first year in which Humira dealt with biosimilar competitors– revealed the overall variety of adalimumab prescriptions stayed almost flat in the year’s 4th quarter (Q4) relative to the exact same quarter in 2022, however net costs on all adalimumab items fell 45% over this duration, according to Benjamin Rome, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and coworkers.
Net expenses per prescription likewise decreased precipitously, by 43%, the group reported in a JAMA Health Forum research study letter. Humira likewise maintained its stranglehold on the market for adalimumab: biosimilar prescriptions in Q4 2023 were simply 1.35% of the overall.
The scientists pulled prescription information from the IQVIA National Prescription Audit, and sales figures from makers’ released monetary reports. (Because some biosimilar makers aren’t public business, not all were consisted of in the analysis; likewise, clients’ out-of-pocket expenses were not offered.)
While the net costs drop is plainly an advantage, Rome and coworkers alerted that it might not be sustainable if biosimilar makers can’t do much better at offering their items.
“Lower healthcare costs is an objective of biosimilar intro, however low uptake raises issues that producers might withdraw from the marketplace or prevent establishing future biosimilars,” they described. “Compared with biosimilars, uptake of brand-new generic drugs is typically quick, balancing 66% of the marketplace share throughout the very first year after brand-name market exclusivity ends.”
Adalimumab should be the most profitable market there is for biosimilars: as Rome and coworkers kept in mind, it’s “the very popular drug in history, with more than $200 billion in international sales because its 2002 approval.” It now boasts approvals for 9 indicators consisting of rheumatoid arthritis and associated conditions, both significant types of inflammatory bowel illness, and plaque psoriasis. Biosimilars started to win FDA approval in 2016; however thanks to the patent thicket AbbVie had actually set up around adalimumab, real biosimilar sales in the U.S. didn’t start up until 2023.
Potential customers for expense savings didn’t look fantastic at first: AbbVie began 2023 by in fact raising Humira’s market price by 8%, Rome and coworkers showed. The start of biosimilar competitors, nevertheless, obviously triggered the business likewise to trek its discount rates and refunds paid to insurance companies and drug store advantage supervisors. That is how AbbVie had the ability to keep offering Humira at almost the very same rate as in the past, and likewise how its net sales dropped in spite of the increased sticker price.
Therefore, it ends up that both sides in an earlier dispute about biosimilars’ effect on the biologic drug market were proper.
