• Bone Health
  • Immunology
  • Hematology
  • Respiratory
  • Dermatology
  • Diabetes
  • Gastroenterology
  • Neurology
  • Oncology
  • Ophthalmology
  • Rare Disease
  • Rheumatology

Dr Ira Klein: Biosimilars and the Cost of Care

Video

Ira Klein, MD, senior director of health care quality strategy for the strategic customer group at Johnson & Johnson Health Care Services, explains how biosimilars will help to control costs.

Transcript:

Do you see biosimilar treatments as playing a role in controlling the cost of care?

I think we’ve already seen biosimilars act as a cost-leveraging mechanism. If you look at the average sales price of original anti—tumor necrosis factor drugs, and you look at the entrance of biosimilars into the marketplace, you can see a definite competitive trend, so there is a lot of competition in this space and that is causing [average sales prices, ASPs] to go down. I think that as the field continues to grow, you’ll see more of this.

I would say that our position is that patients who are on a particular agent should remain on that agent if they’re getting efficacious therapy, because "biosimilar" does not mean "same molecule." For new starts, I think that it should be a level playing field and the competition should be on the basis of both price and service delivery as well as known outcomes. However, I think that on existing therapy, our first duty is to keep the patient safe. But overall, in this field, biosimilars will act in a market force the way other market forces have caused competition to adjust price. We’re seeing that in the marketplace and we think that’s good for the American public.

Recent Videos
Sophia Humphreys, PharmD
Sophia Humphreys, PharmD
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN
Ivo Abraham, PhD, RN.
Jeffrey Casberg, MS, RPh
Related Content
© 2024 MJH Life Sciences

All rights reserved.