There had
been a study on Etanercept Switching Patterns at the 2017 EULAR Annual Meeting
in Madrid. I’ve already looked at studies addressing biosimilars at the 2017
EULAR Annual Meeting [1,2]. But there is this interesting study on patients,
who had been placed on etanercept biosimilar and switched back to the
originator drug.
R. Alten
and colleagues presented [3]: “PRELIMINARY REAL WORLD DATA ON SWITCHING
PATTERNS BETWEEN ETANERCEPT, ITS RECENTLY MARKETED BIOSIMILAR COUNTERPART AND
ITS COMPETITOR ADALIMUMAB, USING SWEDISH PRESCRIPTION REGISTRY”. The study is on
Swedish patients, as in Sweden the switch to biosimilars has been implemented
much earlier than for instance in Germany. 7% of the patients switched back to
originator etanercept after an average of 43 days. Interestingly 6% of patients
switched back to from etanercept biosimilar to their original drug adalimumab
after an average of 57 days. “Despite the change from a brand biologic to the
biosimilar is very likely made for economic reasons, the reasons for switching
back to the innovator are not clear and may imply patients’ preference or clinical
reasons.”
The
impact of biologics is strange. To change from originator etanercept to
etanercept biosimilar is understandable, but changing to adalimumab. Yet, we
have to investigate the reasons for
switching back to the original biologics. It is unclear if this stimulates
anti-drug antibodies.
Links and
References:
[3] DOI:
10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-eular.3585
.
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