Industry welcomes the European Commission commitment to a sustainable and competitive off-patent biologics market
The European pharmaceutical industry welcomes the initiative by the European Commission Directorate General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG Grow) to host on 6 October 2015, an event on access to biosimilar medicines in Europe.
The “Workshop on Access to and Uptake of Biosimilar Medicinal Products” brings together healthcare stakeholders to share their perception, perspectives and experiences with biosimilar medicines developments, following the conclusion of the Process on Corporate Responsibility in the Pharmaceutical Sector, which ran from 2011 to 2014. In addition, IMS Health presented the preliminary results of a new report on ‘The impact of biosimilar competition”.
The pharmaceutical industry believes that this forum will increase the level of understanding about the benefits of biosimilar medicines competition. At present, biosimilar medicines represent a small but growing market in the EU, but also harbour a significant potential to increase access to high quality medicines for patients, contribute to the sustainability of healthcare systems and free up resources for innovative medicines. Effective biosimilar competition is part of the solution to lower healthcare expenditure and to treat more patients.
If Europe is able to establish a sustainable market framework to stimulate biosimilar competition, patients, health care providers and payers will benefit from an increased choice of available therapies and increased patient access to existing and new therapies, which will help governments to manage their budgets.
