Biosimilars: a cheaper yet equally efficient alternative to name-brand medications

Connie Ziegler was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was a young girl.

"When I was about a year and a half, I was told by my parents that my knees especially started hurting. And that I didn´t want to walk very far. And started having pain. Not that long after that and the first symptoms, I was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis"

She began treatment for her condition in her early twenties. Then, some ten years ago, doctors advised them to change her ordinary medication to biosimilars.

Biosimilars are biological medications that are copies of approved reference drugs, though cheaper to manufacture and more affordable for patients and health systems.

We went to find out what they were.

The European Medicine Agency defines biosimilars as " a biological medicine highly similar to another biological medicine already approved in the EU (called 'reference medicine') in terms of structure, biological activity and efficacy, safety and immunogenicity profile (the intrinsic ability of proteins and other biological medicines to cause an immune response)."

They are similar to name-band medication (reference medication) as they both contain biological material in their composition (such as bacteria, yeast or protein for example), though biosimilars will present some variations in their active substance compared to the name-brand drug. This is due to the biological nature of the medication. Biosimilars are unlike 'generic' versions of biological medicines as those are exact chemical-based copies of a name-brand drug. 

However, Biosimilars are still subject to strict EU testing and approval before entering the market. They are evaluated by the EMA's scientific committees which look at the majority of marketing