Bayer Backs Eylea's Prospects Despite Lucentis Biosimilars

Bayer AG is confident that its ophthalmology blockbuster Eylea will continue to grow despite the challenge coming from Roche Holding AG’s bispecific antibody Vabysmo and cut-price competition from biosimilars of Lucentis.

This week the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new biosimilar of Roche and Novartis AG’s big-earning eye therapy Lucentis (ranibizumab), Coherus BioSciences, Inc.’s Cimerli. It is not the first approved biosimilar of Lucentis in the US (that was Biogen, Inc. and Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd.’s Byooviz) but Cimerli is the first that can be substituted across all Lucentis’ five indications and be fully interchangeable