New Senate Bill Takes Shortcuts on Path to Biosimilars

Senators Charles Schumer, Sherrod Brown, Susan Collins and Mel Martinez have introduced a bill regarding the approval process for the approval of Biosimilars.

However, according to Biotechnology Industry Organization President Jim Greenwood, the bill proposed by Senators Schumer et. al. is essentially a recipe for disaster.

According to Greenwood:

“While well-intentioned, the bill introduced today by Senators Schumer, Brown, Collins and Martinez follows its companion bill in the House (H.R. 1427, The Promoting Innovation and Access to Life-Saving Medicine Act) through the looking glass to a world of biosimilars that would jeopardize patient safety and undermine future medical breakthroughs.

“The legislation short cuts scientific requirements needed to ensure patient safety and creates an imbalanced system that could chill investment in research focused on discovering new treatments and cures for devastating diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

“As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has noted, biotech drugs are so molecularly complex that they are almost impossible to replicate accurately with existing science. Even minor differences in the purity of a biotech drug can change its efficacy and safety. With this in mind, any biosimilars legislation should mandate that FDA approval of a biosimilar include clinical trial data demonstrating its safety, purity and potency. Yet this bill includes language that would discourage the FDA from conducting certain clinical trials.

“More, the bill unfairly tilts the playing field toward biosimilars manufacturers. This legislation provides for less data exclusivity than traditional pharmaceutical drugs currently receive under the Hatch-Waxman regime even though every credible study on this issue has found that biologics will need greater data exclusivity than traditional drugs to ensure future medical breakthroughs. Additionally, innovators would be required under the bill introduced today to share detailed information about every applicable patent to biosimilar manufacturers, making it easier for the biosimilar company to bypass valid patents. Innovators, on the other hand, would have no ability to receive relevant information from the biosimilar manufacturer about the molecules, ingredients, and processes they use to create the biosimilar.

“A successful pathway to biosimilars must strike the right balance in ensuring patient safety and providing fair, responsible incentives for continued biotech research into cures for diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and HIV/AIDS and unmet medical needs. The bill introduced today fails to meet this reasonable metric.

“We urge Congress to ensure that any pathway for approving biosimilars is grounded in sound science, safeguards patient safety, and preserves incentives to develop future breakthrough therapies and cures.”

This topic is sure to be hotly debated over the coming months.....Stay tuned.