Payers, providers, and patients in the US are narrowly focused on a limited set of biosimilar products; we all know them well—the anti-TNFs, the colony-stimulating growth factors, and most recently some antitumor drugs (e.g., trastuzumab, rituximab, and bevacizumab). In 2020, before the first biosimilar to Humira® hits the market, some medications may be reclassified as biosimilar status.
Tucked away in the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA) is a set of obscure provisions that has the potential to create a good deal of confusion at that time.
“Transition drugs.” If you’re familiar with the term, you’re one of the few. Some medications are “transitioning” in the next couple of years. Specifically, drugs that will be transitioned include the insulins, but also other naturally occurring proteins, such as hyaluronidase, human growth hormones, and menotropins.
The mechanism is actually quite simple. Today, these products are all approvable under the original Food, Drug, and Cosmetics (FD&C) Act of 1962. By 2020, these agents will be approvable as biologics under the BPCIA. That means that they will not only be categorized as a biologic, but they will be subject to biosimilar—not generic—competition. No more new drug applications or abbreviated new drug applications, only biologic license applications of the 351(a) and 351(k) varieties.
In March 2016, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued draft guidance on these transitional produc
ts. As the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society described it earlier this year, “Put simply: FDA will not approve any pending or tentatively approved application for a biological product under the Federal [FD&C] Act after 23 March 2020.”
This may have the effect of slowing approval of today’s so-called follow-on biologics, which will have to go through the 351(k) application process. For example, Lilly received approval for its insulin glargine product under a 505(b)2 application. This application process allowed Lilly to use clinical data from Sanofi’s originator product Lantus®. Under the letter of the new law, because no insulin glargine product has been approved via the biologic license application route, there are no “reference” or originator insulin products.
This can result in labeling and exclusivity period issues as well, possibly discouraging manufacturers of these products from applying for FDA approval. “Nothing in the [BPCIA] suggests that Congress intended to grant biological products approved under section 505 of the FD&C Act—some of which were approved decades ago—a period of exclusivity upon being deemed to have a license under the PHS Act that would impede biosimilar or interchangeable product competition in several product classes until the year 2032,” FDA said.
A legislative proposal was introduced in 2015 by Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX), which would have asked the Government Accountability Office to review the provisions and their potential impact before the 2020 transition took place. The proposal did not advance in the House.
A search revealed no updates on the legislative or regulatory sides of the fence, so we assume the transition will occur as intended. Currently stated policy by the FDA is that all biologics will receive a new four-character suffix to their nonproprietary names. Will this apply to the older insulins and growth hormones as well? Will coding, descriptors, or nomenclature for Lantus® have to change to reflect a new status as a reference biologic product? Or will this only apply to medications approved after March 2020 (in which case, there could be a confusing dichotomy here).
It could get a bit messy, folks.
