New Analysis Encourages Employer Engagement to Help Realize Significant Savings Potential of Biosimilars

WASHINGTON — Employers have a vital role to play in promoting biosimilars utilization, a new analysis found, pointing to significant savings potentials if employers make concerted efforts to provide incentives for and increase education of biosimilar use with physicians and patients. In response, the Biosimilars Forum President, Juliana Reed, today issued the following statement:

Multi-stakeholder engagement — from Congress and the White House to physicians and payers — is crucial to overcoming barriers that inhibit U.S. biosimilars market from taking hold. Given their unique positioning to negotiate health plan designs with providers, employers are integral to this effort. This new analysis confirms that employers can also help patients and the health care system realize the savings potential of biosimilars, if they actively invest in promoting biosimilars utilization.

Biosimilars hold great promise to help control rising health care costs in the United States, but we need to fully recognize their value in order to realize these benefits. As originator biologics continue to monopolize the market, we are at risk of a future where there is no competition from biosimilars in the U.S. market. Everyone, including employers, has a role to play in helping the U.S. promote and sustain a competitive biosimilars market to ensure lower price options for patients.

The analysis, conducted by Matrix Global Advisors (MGA) and the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) and sponsored by Biosimilars Forum member company Boehringer Ingelheim, analyzed data provided by a large manufacturing company with a high deductible plan comprising more than 80,000 members.

Modeling three different scenarios of biosimilar utilization and price discount, the analysis found that the employer could save up to $2.8 million and patients could save up to $158,000, underscoring the urgency for employers to invest in promoting biosimilars utilization.