However, to increase access, biosimilar medicines — equivalent products that have no meaningful differences from the original or reference product in terms of quality, safety or efficacy — also have important roles to play in providing choice for clinicians, driving down cost and, ultimately, improving patient outcomes.
In 2016, the British Biosimilars Association (BBA) was launched with the specific purpose of providing an authoritative source of information to educate people — be they patients, clinicians, regulators or policy makers — about the opportunity that these important medicines provide.
There are a number of reasons why this needs to take place. From a macro perspective, the impact of biological medicines both now — and increasingly in the future — cannot be ignored or indeed underestimated for patients and payors alike.
Biological medicines are protein based and made or derived from living organisms. Unlike traditional chemical equivalents, they can be tailor-made so they bind to specific targets in the body.
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