Biosimilars

Each year, we look forward to hosting our members, friends, colleagues and partners for Access!, AAM’s annual meeting. Held in Orlando, Florida, this year’s conference was unique in that we also hosted the 25th Annual Meeting of the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA) in the same location, a dual experience that helped to strengthen global cooperation in our shared effort to expand patient access to more affordable generic and biosimilar medicines.

At a time of rising health care costs, generic and biosimilar medicines continue to generate savings and increase access to care for patients. AAM’s 2022 U.S. Generic & Biosimilar Medicines Savings Report provides new insights across a variety of settings where savings reached greater heights, benefiting patients, consumers, employers, and taxpayers alike.

Here are five key takeaways from this year’s report:

Congress is actively seeking to advance legislation to allow the Medicare program to “negotiate” the prices of brand drugs. However, these proposals neglect to consider the impact on the development of lower-cost generic and biosimilar medicines.

The biosimilars industry is proving that market competition works to drive down drug costs and increase patient access to medicines. According to IQVIA, savings from biosimilars increased over 800% from 2018 to 2020, from under $900M in 2018 to $7.9B in 2020^1,2. This is the result of new biosimilar launches and robust competition under which multiple biosimilar drug manufacturers win market share based on lower prices.

In 2021, employers experienced a 6.3% jump in health benefit costs.¹ Findings such as these, paired with high brand-name drug costs, are why commercial and employer-sponsored health plans have long looked forward to savings from biosimilar competition. Unfortunately, employers soon will be facing higher costs, if provisions in the Build Back Better Act (BBB) that discourage biosimilar development are adopted by Congress.