AMSTERDAM—As more biosimilar drugs for rheumatic diseases make their way to market, evidence is growing that switching from the originator drug to a biosimilar tends to be effective, while the questions of switching back and forth, and switching multiple times using several different biosimilars, remain to be answered, an expert on the topic said at…
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Express Scripts Holding, the largest manager of U.S. drug benefits, on Thursday launched a program aimed at tightening spending on drugs for pricey inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. It is the latest Express Scripts effort intended to reduce spending on prescription drugs, such as last week’s announcement of a diabetes program. Early…
ZURICH (Reuters)—Novartis has won U.S. approval for a copy of Amgen’s blockbuster arthritis drug Enbrel, but the Swiss drugmaker’s bid to muscle in on the medicine’s $4.7 billion in annual U.S. revenue remains blocked by court battles. Novartis’s Sandoz unit said on Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Erelzi, its biosimilar copy…
On Nov. 19, 2015, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended granting marketing authorization for SB4, an etanercept biosimilar product that will be called Benepali.1 On Jan. 16, 2016, EMA granted marketing authorization in the European Union for Benepali to be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic…