Bold Move To Embed Biosimilar Switching Aims To Bring Savings Of Up To £300m For NHS England

NHS England has produced a new framework intended to increase the use of biosimilars and generate savings of £200-300m on the drugs bill each year by 2020/21. An initial focus will be AbbVie’s Humira (adalimumab) and Roche’s Herceptin (trastuzumab), which are due to face biosimilar competition in the UK soon. Biosimilars firms have welcomed the move, but the R&D-based industry believes the savings targets set out in the document are unrealistic.

Price - Value
NHS England has plans to make £300m in savings from cheaper biosimilars

The National Health Service in England has produced a set of proposals for boosting the use of biosimilar medicines in order to generate savings of £200-300m on the drugs bill each year by 2020/21. To help reach this objective, the NHS wants at least 90% of new patients to be prescribed the “best value” biological drug within three months of a biosimilar version being launched.

NHS England said that with biological medicines currently representing the largest cost growth area in the NHS medicines budget, the aim was to “drive a step change in the uptake of biosimilar medicines by clinical commissioning groups” and to “make sure patients

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