How Do Bioisimilars Drive High Drug Prices? Proposed Drug Policy Could Save Americans $360 Billion

March 19, 2021

One proposed solution for high drug prices in the United States is the use of biosimilars. According to Peter Bach, Director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering, along with Mark Trusheim, Strategic Director of the NEWDIGS drug development think tank at MIT, this is incorrect and there’s no more time to waste. They propose a prescription drug policy that would bypass biosimilars by limiting exclusivity rights to a dozen years. After this period of time, a biologic’s price would be capped at 10 percent above its production cost, leading to $360 billion in savings by 2025.

“Despite periodic reports that biosimilars have finally arrived and will save the U.S. health care system billions of dollars, Peter Bach and Mark Trusheim remain unconvinced. So the high-profile skeptics have refreshed their controversial, two-year-old argument for overhauling the approach for making alternative versions of pricey biologic medicines available to the American public.” Read more here.