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.