European Physicians’ Biosimilar Views: A Primer

Report Overview

In February 2014, Alvogen announced the launch of Inflectra (infliximab) into Central and Eastern Europe. Inflectra is a biosimilar medicine to the reference medicinal product, Remicade, and is the first monoclonal antibody to be approved through the European Medicines Agency (EMA) biosimilars regulatory pathway. Remicade recorded European sales of over USD 2 billion in 2012.
So the biosimilar approvals are coming, but will physicians prescribe them? To find out, ISR asked 348 board-certified physicians across Spain, Italy, France, and Germany what they thought about prescribing biosimilar products.

What you will learn:

• European physicians’ familiarity with biologic and biosimilar medicines
• Physician attitudes toward clinical development requirements for biosimilar medicines
• Physician views on pharmacy-level substitutions
• Importance of medication cost when prescribing
• Impact biosimilar pricing has on prescribing recommendations
• Physician concern with safety and efficacy of biosimilar products
• Current and future prescribing behavior for biosimilar medicines

Methodology:

348 European physicians were surveyed for this report on the biosimilar landscape in France (N=87), Spain (N=87), Germany (N=87), and Italy (N=87).

To qualify to take this survey, physicians had to pass several screening criteria:

• Had to currently prescribe medications to patients
• Had to be board certified in one of the following therapeutic areas:

1. Dermatology
2. Endocrinology
3. Gastrointestinal
4. Hematology oncology
5. Nephrology
6. Neurology
7. Oncology
8. Rheumatology