Global Biosimilars Week 2022

Key Metrics

0

biosimilars approved

Covering over 0

therapeutic areas

Welcome!

IGBA is hosting its third annual Global Biosimilars Week on November 14-18. The goal of this social media campaign is to raise awareness of the powerful impact of biosimilar medicines and provide key resources for advocates and interested parties.

Support the Social Media Campaign

All week, we invite stakeholders, patients, health care professionals and their organizations around the world to share their resources and information about biosimilar medicines in social media with the hashtag #GlobalBiosimilarsWeek. Together we can create a movement to advance access of biosimilar medicines to patients around the world.

Download & Share Flyer

Download Social Toolkit

Don't miss out and subscribe to hear the latest news on this campaign.

Strengthening Healthcare
The Value of Biosimilar Medicines

The campaign theme this year is the Value of Biosimilar medicines. Each day of the week we encourage supporters to share different aspects of biosimilar’s value in social media. Click the arrows below for more details and see sample messages in the social toolkit.

Day 1 (Nov 14)

Biosimilars: Value for patients

Provide increased and sustainable access to quality- assured and cost-effective biologic treatments (high value care), hence contributing to improve the quality of care and hence improved health outcomes
Offer greater choice for patients
Increase the opportunity of biologic treatments in LMICs, hence supporting health equity (global access)

Day 2 (Nov 15)

Offer greater choice for healthcare providers / autonomy to prescribe (lifting restrictions)
Allow cost savings and efficiencies in the delivery of high-value care
Explore earlier interventions in the course of the disease for better outcomes (immunology)
Enable access to innovative combination therapies (cancer)
Invest in care beyond medicines: staff, equipment, diagnostics and testing

Day 3 (Nov 16)

Increasing access is an essential pillar for governments in achieving Target 3.4 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals SDGs by 2030 – i.e. reduce mortality from Non-Communicable Diseases and promote mental health.
- help to address inequities in health
Introduce competition to the biologics market, which impacts overall treatment costs over time
Provide headroom for innovation
Support medium and long-term sustainability of healthcare systems
Ensure supply chain resilience

Day 4 (Nov 17)

Biosimilars: Value for regulators

Allow vast global positive clinical experience with biologic medicines, confirmed through consistency of pharmacovigilance
Foster science and refinements of comparability technologies
Converge and harmonize regulatory requirements

Day 5 (Nov 18)

Join the Biosimilars Movement!

When competition kicks in, we need policies in place supporting the reinvestment of the savings in more patients having access.
Suzette Kox, IGBA Secretary General
With 15 years of positive biosimilar medicines contribution to patient health and healthcare system sustainability, the challenges and remedies to efficient use of biosimilar medicines are well known.
Julie Maréchal-Jamil, Co-Chair, IGBA Biosimilars Committee
The COVID-19 global health crisis has led governments and the entire healthcare community to rethink and rebuild healthcare systems; this includes focusing on their ability to efficiently deliver access to biologic therapies and to effectively address non-communicable diseases.
Sudarshan Jain, IGBA Past Chair

Interviews

Our last interview during our third Global Biosimilars Week features Dr Cary Adams, CEO of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and Suzette Kox, IGBA Secretary General. It covers the relatively new UICC initiative, namely a different approach to access by the Access to Oncology Medicines (ATOM) Coalition and how biosimilar medicines companies can play a role in the Coalition’s ambition of improving access to essential cancer medicines.

watch past interviews

An IGBA Biosimilars Committee White Paper

Embracing Science with Confidence: Adopting the Revised 2022 WHO Biosimilars Guideline

Biosimilar medicines hold the potential to enable equitable access to biologic therapies for patients around the world. The IGBA’s 2021 Biosimilar medicines Access Policy Blueprint identified four key areas where global collaborative action can help achieve the potential for biosimilar medicines.

This paper further elaborates on one of the key areas: Enhancing Regulatory Efficiency for Greater Access.

It discusses how the revised 2022 WHO Biosimilars Guideline (the Guideline) provides a timely opportunity to collectively re-evaluate the way in which regulatory requirements can better advance biosimilar access. The Guideline defines globally acceptable principles for licensing biological products that can be used to harmonize biosimilar medicines regulations around the world. If cohesively adopted by national regulatory authorities, the Guideline can promote more efficient regulatory systems to provide patients with earlier access to safe, effective, high-quality, and lowercost biosimilar medicines.

Download IGBA White Paper

Biosimilar Resources

View these educational modules to learn how the biosimilar landscape began and how patients and health care systems benefit from biosimilar medicines around the globe.

The era of biological medicines

Since 1980, biological medicines, which are highly complex treatments made by or derived from a biological source, have grown to become an indispensable tool in modern medicine. These safe and effective medicines are targeted to treat many rare and serious diseases and millions of patients have already benefited from these treatments.

OPEN

Biological medicines – the major social and economic challenges

Health care systems around the globe are under financial stress due to the pandemic, an aging population and rising prevalence of chronic conditions, with pharmaceutical spending expected to reach $1.6 trillion USD globally in the coming years. Biological medicines, while an important tool in treating certain conditions, come at a very high cost and hence are inaccessible for many patients.

OPEN

Biosimilar medicines – rising to the cost challenge

Biosimilar medicines are biological medicines that are developed to be highly similar to an existing biological medicine, but are more cost-effective. Today, hundreds of biosimilar medicines have been approved around the globe, which brought competition to the marketplace after patent expiry of the original biological. This has produced huge savings and eased financial stress on health care systems and substantially increased patients access to biological treatments.

OPEN

Biosimilar medicines – a commitment to scientific excellence

With biosimilar medicines, patients and healthcare providers benefit from quality-assured and efficacious therapeutic alternatives. Biosimilar medicine development is target-oriented and comparative, requiring significant investment and state-of-the-art technologies. Extensive evidence is required to demonstrate that a biosimilar medicine is as safe and effective as its reference biologic. Additionally, the same high regulatory standards apply as for any other medicine.

OPEN

The benefits of biosimilar medicines

Greater competition introduced by biosimilar medicines has many benefits for patients, providers, and health care systems around the world. Biosimilar medicines give providers a broader range of treatment options for their patients and give more patients access to biological treatments. Additionally, by representing cost-effective alternatives to reference biologicals, biosimilar medicines offer health care systems huge savings for the same clinical outcome.

OPEN

Building on the experience and success of biosimilar medicines

Biosimilar medicines have become an integral part of our health care systems. Today, they are internationally recognized for expanding access to life-saving treatments. Building on the experience and the success of biosimilar medicines supports their increased uptake and safeguards the medical supply chain.

OPEN