When asked about potential cost savings with the infliximab biosimilar, nearly one-quarter of health system respondents did not believe that it represented a cost savings opportunity for their organization, according to a newly published survey in the Journal of Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy.
Conducted by Premier, Inc., a group purchasing organization, 57 US health systems responded to its questionnaire in April and May 2017 (before the launch of Merck/Samsung Bioepis’ Renflexis® biosimilar). All of the health systems currently used infliximab at their facilities.
The greatest barrier to adoption cited by the health systems was the reimbursement from payers (28%), with actual cost of the biosimilar being a lesser concern (10%). According to the survey, about one-third of the respondents had had communications by that time with payers regarding the latter’s approach to biosimilar coverage.
Interestingly, 62% of those systems represented by the survey respondents had not reviewed Pfizer’s Inflectra® in their Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committees. In large part, thi
s was a continuation of a “wait-and-see” approach, particularly in view of the relatively small discounts offered by Pfizer. Others responded that they were awaiting Merck’s entry into the marketplace, to review both biosimilars at the same time.
“For sites of care that approved formulary addition of the infliximab biosimilar, implementation strategies ranged from full product conversion to ‘new patients’ only,” wrote the author, Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, Director of Pharmacy Program Development-Biosimilars at Premier. “Some sites added it to their formularies as a preferred product but only when payer coverage supported it.”
Seventy-six percent of respondents perceived that there was a cost savings opportunity for biosimilars compared with the reference product. What are the expectations of the remaining health system executives? If they don’t believe biosimilars do not save the system money, why not?
