PARIS, Jan 30 (APM) - The chair of the French economic committee for health products (CEPS) Dominique Giorgi has defended the principle of a progressive discounting in biosimilar prices compared to reference products, during a parliamentary hearing.
Giorgi argued this was the best approach to ultimately maximise savings and pointed out when generic drugs emerged early in the 2000s, the discount was around 30% whereas it is now 60%, during a hearing of the 'parliamentary office for the evaluation of scientific and technical choices'.
CEPS intends to apply a similar policy for biosimilar prices in the community, “probably with a lower initial discount” the chair said, adding he could be “more demanding” once these drugs will have “found their place” on the French market.
He also pointed out that that CEPs requests a price cut when a biological drug loses patent protection and produced figures suggesting there would not be a big difference in price of branded biological and near copy.
He mentioned price reductions “in the order of 15% to 20%” for the reference drugs and a discount “in the order to 25% to 35%” in comparison with the initial price of the reference drug for biosimilars.
In a hearing which was webcast, he also reminded the audience of CEPS policy concerning the pricing of biosimilars in hospitals (APMMA 40135) that includes a cut of 10% on loss of patent and an equal price for the reference drug and its biosimilar.
He said “once competition has done its work, we shall make a note of the actual prices (obtained in hospital calls for tender),” and said that further price cuts could be applied “12 to 18 months” after that.
More generally, Giorgi emphasised the need to make sure the biosimilar market is “profitable, viable” for pharma companies to encourage effective competition.
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