PURPOSE: Balancing improvement in population health while maintaining a sustainable healthcare budget is increasingly challenging worldwide. Biosimilars which have already been introduced in several regions and will become available in Asia Pacific can contribute to addressing unmet medical needs while supporting healthcare budget management. This workshop will present an overview of global access and adoption landscape for biosimilars, analyze barriers, and discuss solutions from distinct perspectives covering clinical, economic and humanistic aspects.

DESCRIPTION: Payers in Asia-Pacific are under scrutiny to control healthcare expenditure and to enhance the sustainability of healthcare systems. Pressure on healthcare budget will likely continue to increase due to numerous factors including aging populations and innovative therapies. Moreover, some countries in the region are experiencing limited access to medicines, especially biologic drugs, due to budget constraints. Biosimilars have the potential to expand access¹ to life-saving therapies and to reduce healthcare costs. Despite this seemingly positive outlook, adoption of biosimilars in the region remain suboptimal notwithstanding the recent market entry of a growing number of biosimilars. Recent improvement in biosimilar uptake in Europe and the US can serve as a benchmark for stakeholders in Asia Pacific and demonstrate how various healthcare systems have successfully managed biosimilar uptake.

The panelists will bring insights from their respective regions, Europe, the US and APAC and share real-world successes as well as remaining gaps and challenges from the payer, physician and patient perspectives to optimize a sustainable use of biosimilars to benefit patients and healthcare systems. The panel will also address frequent concerns around biosimilars such as product quality and regulatory processes as well as real-world clinical effectiveness and safety that are needed to foster confidence in biosimilar adoption.

^1. IQVIA (2018). The Impact of Biosimilar Competition in Europe.