It’s the third-annual Global Biosimilars Week, a social media campaign created and driven by the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA) and its members to raise awareness about biosimilar medicines.
Steve Selde, Director of the Biosimilars Council, a division of the Association of Accessible Medicines (AAM), joins Eileen to celebrate #GlobalBiosimilarsWeek and catch up with her since she last shared her biosimilar experience.
View Eileen's story on the AAM blog: https://biosimilarscouncil.org/resource/singing-dancing-and-taking-care-of-herself-with-biosimilars/
Learn more about the annual IGBA global education initiative at https://www.globalbiosimilarsweek.org/
WASHINGTON D.C. (October 3, 2022) -- The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) and its Biosimilars Council applaud the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for its support of biosimilars and rapid implementation of the enhanced payment for biosimilars in Medicare Part B.
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:
WASHINGTON, DC (September 21, 2022) — Today, the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM), the leading trade association for generic and biosimilar manufacturers, released its 2022 U.S. Generic & Biosimilar Medicines Savings Report highlighting the value of generic and biosimilar medicines.
Featuring data from IQVIA, the 2022 U.S. Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Savings Report reveals generic and biosimilar drugs generated a record $373 billion for America’s patients and healthcare system in 2021. Despite the tremendous savings from generic drugs, many patients continue to pay more than necessary.
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 20201,2. 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.
What are GDUFA and BsUFA user fees? Watch this this video to learn more about how the Generic Drug User Fee Amendments (GDUFA) and Biosimilar User Fee Act (BsUFA) help to get more generic and biosimilar medicines to patients more quickly. Over ten years, the generic and biosimilar industry has provided the FDA over $4 billion for review and approval of lower-cost treatments for America’s patients. The result is more than $2 trillion in savings to patients and a dramatic increase in patient access to life-saving treatments.