French Hospital to Drop Remicade in Favor of a Biosimilar
A large health system will use the biosimilar version of infliximab from Hospira after the company offered a discount of 45%.
Reuters reports that after receiving a 45% discount from Remicade (infliximab), the central purchasing agency for the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) will use the biosimilar version of infliximab instead of branded Remicade.
Remicade accounts for 25% of Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical revenues, according toForbes. Although the patent for Remicade expired in Europe, giving way to biosimilars for that product, the US patent for Remicade does not expire until 2018.
The biosimilar for infliximab was sold to Norway recently for a 69% discount, an even better deal than what France received, though Reuters reports that it was from another supplier. Despite the fact that many analysts initially estimated that biosimilar discounts would be around 15–20%, in reality, the discounts have been significantly larger, a fact that may force branded drug manufacturers to re-evaluate their pricing strategies.
Drug Solutions Podcast: Gliding Through the Ins and Outs of the Pharma Supply Chain
November 14th 2023In this episode of the Drug Solutions podcast, Jill Murphy, former editor, speaks with Bourji Mourad, partnership director at ThermoSafe, about the supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically related to packaging, pharma air freight, and the pressure on suppliers with post-COVID-19 changes on delivery.
