Q&A: Educating Patients, Providers to Increase Biosimilar Implementation | ASHP Midyear

With biosimilar medications standing out as a cost-effective option for brand-name prescription drugs, they have garnered speculation among both patients and providers regarding efficacy and safety. Coupled with their recent introduction into the pharmaceutical space, experts believe education on these newly adopted medications is key to improving patient outcomes.

Kehasse is the Director of Clinical Programs and Drug information at Clearway Health in Boston. | image credit: Aryan / stock.adobe.com

“Educating patients and making sure that we address their concerns is key,” Amanuel Kehasse, PharmD, PhD, Director of Clinical Programs and Drug information at Clearway Health in Boston. “Providers [are] the same. A lot of providers have concerns to use biosimilars, especially for the non-medical switch. Educating providers why this will be important clinically and financially for the health care system would be key.”

Check out Kehasse’s exclusive interview with Drug Topics, discussing the common barriers providers face when looking to encourage the use of biosimilars and how pharmacists will be able to maneuver these issues going into 2025.

Drug Topics: What are the key barriers to biosimilar implementation and how can those barriers be addressed?
Kehasse: There are several barriers to biosimilar implementation to clinical practice. The first is the perception or knowledge gap that exists in providers and patients themselves. Speaking of the patients, they are the final step of biosimilar conversion and implementation and they are the ultimate users of this medication. We know from [a] survey stance, so far, there is a gap in their knowledge about biosimilars. Some of them do not understand what [a] biosimilar is. Some of them may think this is an inferior medication because they always hear the lower cost. So, this is for us to educate: Always, health care should be a cost-effective care provision without compromising the safety and efficacy of the medication. Biosimilars give us that alternative cost-effective care to reference products, so [it’s] educating them that the lower cost does not mean the biosimilar is inferior. We can also share some real-world evidence to show patient experience after the transition to biosimilar. What happened? Are they happy with it clinically? How did they do? That's when the real-world evidence data comes to play to make sure that patients are comfortable to switch. Educating patients and making sure that we address their concerns is key. Providers [are] the same. A lot of providers have concerns to use biosimilars, especially for the non-medical switch. Educating providers why this will be important clinically and financially for the health care system would be key.

The other one is system barriers. Health systems need to make sure that they build the infrastructure to adopt biosimilars. It's a blessing in disguise for operational complexity in pharmacies. When you have multiple biosimilars coming to the market, then you have to have inventory that will have to [be addressed] efficiently. It opens up for errors, so they have to build infrastructure [on] how to manage multiple [inventories] for multiple biosimilars. Pharmacists need to be sure that they are using the right medication and [electronic medical records] (EMR) for physicians to make it easier to prescribe biosimilars. You have to build the structure and [EMR] to make sure that the ease of ordering is put in place, because you don't want them to struggle to find which medication will be appropriate to them. Formulary decisions [are] also important. Not only insurance but health systems have to put this medication in their formulary so that acquisition will be easier. A third is the pair themselves. So once biosimilars are coming to the market—we've seen back in 2020, 2021, up to 2023—there was a significant delay in adoption of biosimilars. Part of that has to do with the patent litigation of manufacturers, but part of that has to do with the pairs; not adapting these biosimilars into their formulary. Or even if they do, they make [it] non-preferred. All these things will delay or impede the adoption of biosimilars into the market.

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