[Can we transfer the mechanisms of the generics market to biosimilars?]

Personalized medicines such as biologics and their generic equivalents, biosimilars, are pouring onto the pharmaceutical markets. Data of 16 private health insurance companies were used to describe the market shares of selected biosimilars available in 2014 and 2015. The purpose of this study focuses on the question of whether market access of biosimilars will lead to a price competition of the expense of innovation competition. The results show that prescriptions of biosimilars made up 37% of total prescriptions in 2015 compared to 35% in 2014, and that their share of prescription costs went up from 21% to 23% in the same period. Price competition similar to that found in the generic markets has been established for erythropoietin and filgrastim. The same has not been observed for follitropin alfa and somatropin due to the limited number of competitors and products available at this stage. No definitive conclusions can be drown from the results at this stage. Time will tell whether it will be possible for physicians and individuals with private health insurance to fully leverage the savings potential of biosimilars while safeguarding patient safety.