by Guillaume Bietry
PARIS, July 20 (APM) – Generics and biosimilars body Medicines for Europe is campaigning for a smaller price difference between biosimilars and their originator drugs than that between generics and their branded equivalents, president Jacek Glinka has told APM.
About 20 biosimilars have been approved in Europe since 2006, but the optimal price difference – which would bring maximum savings while keeping the market attractive and competitive – is still under discussion.
Manufacturers’ viewpoints diverge, with some ready to accept a bigger discount than that for generics (60% in France) while others would prefer 20%-30%.
Novartis, one of the main players on the market via its subsidiary Sandoz, considers that biosimilars could be 75% cheaper than their reference drugs, saying that whatever might be lost in price terms would be compensated for by volume.
by Guillaume Bietry
PARIS, July 20 (APM) – European generics manufacturers want the French government to take more measures to encourage the development of a market that lags considerably behind those in other countries, the president of industry body Medicines for Europe Jacek Glinka has told APM.
While the generic penetration rate for Europe as a whole works out at between 50% and 60% of volumes consumed, in France it is around 30%, 20 years after this key way to reduce health insurance expenditure was written into the public health code.
According to the authorities, just over three boxes of reimbursed drugs in every 10 are generics, compared with three out of every four in Germany and the UK.
For the manufacturers, the French situation is due to successive price cuts, which reduce generics manufacturers’ means of promoting their products, and to doctors’ and patients’ lack of confidence in generics, whose efficacy and quality are regularly brought into question.
Glinka said that the authorities do not sufficiently encourage the development of the market.
European Pharmaceutical Review – VOLUME 21 ISSUE 3 2016
“Understanding the financial implications of the upcoming falsified medicines regulations” – Maarten Van Baelen and Johan Verhaeghe
El presidente de la EGA considera que actualmente la industria europea de genéricos está “atada de manos”.