Jordan Axelrad, MD: The Emergence of Biosimilars in Gastroenterology

The biologic revolution that has brought on numerous new medications in gastroenterology to treat diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) may soon pave the way for a similar rush of biosimilars.

While biosimilars are commonly used to treat diseases in rheumatology, gastroenterology may have lagged behind.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Jordan E. Axelrad, MD, MPH, NYU Langone, said he sees a scenario where more and more biosimilars gain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an effort to reduce the cost of medicines for patients with IBD.

“I think we’re biosimilars are important are for particularly for drugs that are very expensive,” Axelrad said. “Biosimilars may help to reduce that price, not only to health care systems, but also to individual patients as well, depending on their policies.”

Axelrad predicted that the amount of biosimilars approved by the FDA that are useful in gastroenterology will continue to grow.

“Biosimilars are going to continue to grow in the field and I think we are going to start seeing biosimilars to a variety of originator molecules,” Axelrad said. “I think what’s really important is that we have the data that support that changing biosimilars seem to be safe.”