Current trends in biosimilar uptake and special focus on automatic substitution – a symposium report

Abstract: In December 2023, the University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), and University Pharmacy (Yliopiston Apteekki) Helsinki collaborated to present the online symposium titled ‘Current Trends in Biosimilar Uptake and Research with Special Focus on Automatic Substitution’. This provided an overview of global trends in biosimilar use and a systematic examination of the implications of automatic […]


The European framework for intellectual property rights for biological medicines

Author byline as per print journal: Josette Sciberras, MBA, MA Bioethics, BPharm (Hons); Raymond Zammit, SThD; Patricia Vella Bonanno, PhD Introduction: The Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe (2020) proposes actions related to intellectual property (IP) rights as a means of ensuring patients’ access to medicines. This review aims to describe and discuss the European IP framework and […]


European prescribers’ attitudes and beliefs on biologicals prescribing and automatic substitution

Introduction: The European Union (EU) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have led the development of a regulatory framework for biosimilars since 2004. By end of December 2019, 64 biosimilars of 15 originator biological medicines have a marketing authorization in Europe. Now, for the second time, the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines (ASBM) asked European […]


What pricing and reimbursement policies to use for off-patent biologicals in Europe? – results from the second EBE biological medicines policy survey

Author byline as per print journal: Jean-Baptiste Reiland, MSc; Barbara Freischem; Alexander Roediger, MA Introduction/Study objective Biosimilar policies with a focus on uptake have received a lot of attention at national and regional level in the last few years. It is now 10 years since the first biosimilar was approved in the European Union (EU), but […]


Regulatory Science Ireland: bridging the information gap on biosimilar medicines

Author byline as per print journal: Joan O’Callaghan, BSc Pharm; Sean Barry, PhD; Una Moore, PhD; Margaret Bermingham, PhD; J Michael Morris, PhD; Frank Hallinan, PhD; Brendan T Griffin, PhD Abstract: Regulatory Science Ireland (RSI) is a voluntary network of interested parties from academia, the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), pharmaceutical and medical device industries and government […]


What pricing and reimbursement policies to use for off-patent biologicals? – Results from the EBE 2014 biological medicines policy survey

Objective: One of the questions that the advent of biosimilars raises is whether the different nature of biological medicines would also imply the need for a different policy approach by Member States in the European Union (EU). To assess the policy environment the European Biopharmaceutical Enterprises (EBE) conducted a brief descriptive policy survey of pricing […]