Russell Cohen, MD, reviews his presentation from the virtual Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Disease 2020 regional meeting July 25 on positioning biosimilars in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.
Additional Resources:
For more information about AIBD 2020 Regionals and to register for upcoming sessions, visit https://www.aibdregionals.com.
Russell Cohen, MD, is director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at UChicago Medicine.
TRANSCRIPT:
This is Dr. Russell Cohen from Chicago. Thank you for joining me for my presentation on biosimilars in IBD. A few key points that you need to take away.
The first is that biosimilars are here to stay, and you're going to be using them more and more in your patients. The second is that the FDA‑approved biosimilars should be no problem for you to be prescribing for your patients. In many cases, there will be cost savings for your patients and/or the healthcare system.
The third is, be aware that many of the biosimilars were not initially approved in inflammatory bowel disease. Their clinical trials were done in rheumatology or dermatology, but subsequently, with the results that they have, they've been extrapolated to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
However, there have been studies in both conditions with the biosimilars that are approved to show that they are effective and safe in these patient conditions.
An important thing to remember is that if your patient has made antibodies or had a severe reaction against either the original branded name or a biosimilar, for example, infliximab, you should not use the biosimilar or originator for that same drug. You would switch to another therapy.
We're anticipating that as things move along, you'll have more biosimilar options for your patients, and hopefully be able to further reduce healthcare costs and increase patient accessibility to these very wonderful agents.
This is Dr. Russell Cohen. Thank you again for joining me today.
