Fewer biosimilars have been marketed in the United States, compared with Germany and Switzerland, and prices are significantly higher in the US. However, biosimilars that have been introduced in the US recently had a stronger uptake than products that came on the market earlier.
These findings, published in JAMA Network Open, come from a cohort study evaluating market share and prices of biosimilars in the US, compared with Germany and Switzerland, which both have national mechanisms for drug price negotiation.
The study examined publicly available databases to identify all biologics and related biosimilars approved in the US, Germany, and Switzerland through August 2020 but products were only included in the analysis if at least one biosimilar had been marketed. Data on prices were extracted from January 2011 through December 2020. The researchers, led by Kerstin N. Vokinger, MD, PhD, of the University of Zurich, calculated the uptake (relative market share) and relative prices for all biosimilars compared with the reference biologic that shared the same active ingredient and used descriptive statistics to show temporal trends…
