The biosimilar industry continues to make strange bedfellows. In July 2016, I reported in the Center for Biosimilars that a subsidiary of the Japanese camera maker, Fujifilm, had jumped into the biosimilar field. The Indian pharmaceutical company Biocon announced that it has launched its new insulin glargine biosimilar in Japan. Fujifilm Pharma Co, Ltd was named as the partner in this endeavor to commercialize the product in Japan.
Fujifilm Pharma is a producer of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, in addition to contrast media. This makes sense, as the parent is in the imaging business. Medical imaging can be a very natural extension of this activity. But biosimilars?
To reaffirm its strategy, Fujifilm announced a new partnership. Its Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin Biologics subsidiary will manufacture a adalimumab biosimilar in the EU (filed for approval in the EU only) and will be commercialized by Mylan if approved. There is no information about whether Fujifilm will seek authorization to market this biosimilar in the US down the road.
The parent company has over 200 subsidiaries, and it can be complicated to track which ones are directly involved. For example, another Fujifilm company, Fujifilm Diosynth, does contract manufacturing of biologics. Yet, the phase 3 trial being carried out on FKB238 is sponsored by Centus Biotherapeutics Limited, which is a joint venture between Astra Zeneca and Fujifilm Kyowa Kirin Biologics. Centus seems to be involved only with the bevacizumab biosimilar, not with the adalimumab agent. Despite this web of intrigue, Fujifilm is not likely to be overexposed in the biosimilar marketplace. It is also unknown whether their efforts will be affected by the recent difficulties of its partners Biocon and Mylan with getting its pegfilgrastim biosimilar approved. It has been reported that Biocon will also benefit from this latest Mylan collaboration.