Study: faster biosimilar adoption at a UK hospital saved an extra £380,000
A six-year follow-up in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology describes how one UK hospital Trust switched to biosimilars faster and more completely than the English average, while letting patients revert where appropriate.
A paper in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology looks at how a single UK tertiary hospital Trust approached switching patients from originator biologics to biosimilars. It was written by Barron, Chung, Ferner, Leandro, Maru, Scourfield, Urquhart and Sofat.
What the authors did
The authors describe the Trust’s approach to adoption and compare its speed and completeness with the English average. They also followed patients who had switched to a biosimilar and later went back to a biologic they had used before, to see whether returning to the earlier treatment helped them.
Findings
- The approach produced a faster and more complete switch to biosimilars than the English average.
- This saved an additional £380,000 on drug costs in 2021/22.
- Of the patients who reverted to their original biologic, 87% improved in the short term, and a time-on-treatment analysis suggested the benefit was kept over the longer term.
Takeaway
The authors conclude that their approach outperformed the English average and still allows patients to return to their original product after a switch when that is appropriate. It is a single-centre study, so results may not apply everywhere.
