What’s the Deal with Biosimilars? Biosimilars are gaining momentum as new protein therapeutic candidates that can help fill a vital need in the healthcare industry. The biological drugs are produced by recombinant DNA technology that allows for large-scale production and an overall reduction time in costs and development. Part of a two-volume set that covers varying aspects of biosimilars, Biosimilars and Interchangeable Biologics: Strategic Elements explores the strategic planning side of biosimilar drugs and targets issues surrounding biosimilars that are linked to legal matters. This includes principal patents and intellectual property, regulatory pathways, and concerns about affordability on a global scale. It addresses the complexity of biosimilar products, and it discusses the utilization of biosimilars and related biological drugs in expanding world markets. Of specific interest to practitioners, researchers, and scientists in the biopharmaceutical industry, this volume examines the science, technology, finance, legality, ethics, and politics of biosimilar drugs. It considers strategic planning elements that include an overall understanding of the history and the current status of the art and science of biosimilars, and it provides detailed descriptions of the legal, regulatory, and commercial characteristics. The book also presents a global strategy on how to build, take to market, and manage the next generation of biosimilars throughout their life cycle.

The field of biosimilar drugs is one of the hottest subjects in the filed of new drug development, with scores of companies offering seminar and training programs for prospective manufacturers and stakeholders. This book is a modern comprehensive overview of the entire biosimilar manufacturing and distribution process, covering concepts introduced by the FDA, litigation strategies, analytical methods, pharmokinetic studies, and the future and current status of biosimilar product approvals.

A comprehensive primer and reference, this book provides pharmacists and health practitioners the relevant science and policy concepts behind biologics, biosimilars, and biobetters from a practical and clinical perspective. Explains what pharmacists need to discuss the equivalence, efficacy, safety, and risks of biosimilars with physicians, health practitioners, and patients about Guides regulators on pragmatic approaches to dealing with these drugs in the context of rapidly evolving scientific and clinical evidence Balances scientific information on complex drugs with practical information, such as a checklist for pharmacists

The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) and the Pediatric Research Equity Act (PREA) were designed to encourage more pediatric studies of drugs used for children. The FDA asked the IOM to review aspects of pediatric studies and changes in product labeling that resulted from BPCA and PREA and their predecessor policies, as well as assess the incentives for pediatric studies of biologics and the extent to which biologics have been studied in children. The IOM committee concludes that these policies have helped provide clinicians who care for children with better information about the efficacy, safety, and appropriate prescribing of drugs. The IOM suggests that more can be done to increase knowledge about drugs used by children and thereby improve the clinical care, health, and well-being of the nation's children.

Post-Authorization Safety Studies of Medicinal Products: The PASS Book bridges the gap in the literature by providing a complete look at post-authorization safety studies and important pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance aspects. It covers various types and limitations of active surveillance programs, including the use of large databases and disparate data sources for rapid signal detection, as well as novel and advanced design and analysis approaches for causal interference from observational data. This book serves as an important reference for pharmacovigilance scientists and pharmacoepidemiologists who are searching for the appropriate study design to answer safety research questions. Readers will be able to effectively and efficiently design and interpret findings from post-authorization safety studies with the goal of improving the benefit-risk balance of a drug in order to optimize patient safety. - Discusses all types of observational studies in post-marketing drug safety assessment, from spontaneous reporting systems, to pragmatic trials, with examples from real-world settings - Presents various types of post-authorization safety studies - Offers solutions to the common challenges in the design and conduct of these studies - Highlights active surveillance programs, including common data models for rapid signal detection of drug safety issues

In 1996 the Institute of Medicine launched the Quality Chasm Series, a series of reports focused on assessing and improving the nation's quality of health care. Preventing Medication Errors is the newest volume in the series. Responding to the key messages in earlier volumes of the seriesâ€"To Err Is Human (2000), Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), and Patient Safety (2004)â€"this book sets forth an agenda for improving the safety of medication use. It begins by providing an overview of the system for drug development, regulation, distribution, and use. Preventing Medication Errors also examines the peer-reviewed literature on the incidence and the cost of medication errors and the effectiveness of error prevention strategies. Presenting data that will foster the reduction of medication errors, the book provides action agendas detailing the measures needed to improve the safety of medication use in both the short- and long-term. Patients, primary health care providers, health care organizations, purchasers of group health care, legislators, and those affiliated with providing medications and medication- related products and services will benefit from this guide to reducing medication errors.

Numerical analysis of matter transfer is an area that pharmacists find difficult, but which is a technique frequently used in preparing controlled drug release and oral dosage forms. This book provides clear and straightforward information enabling the reader to carry out numerical analysis of matter transfer - a vital processs when looking at the formulation of oral dosage forms with controlled drug release. The drug is dispersed in a polymeric matrix either biodegradable or not, the basis of which is the transfer of the liquid and the drug through dosage form. Information on this diffusion is found either through mathematical treatment when the problem is simple, or through numerical analysis for more complex problems. Professor Vergnaud demonstrates and clarifies these, modelling the process of drug delivery by using numerical analysis and computerization. A simulation of the process is provided, together with a determination of the effects of all parameters, and the author uses both mathematical and numerical models to predict the preparation of new dosage forms able to fulfil specific conditions.

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.

Biopharmaceuticals are derived from biological sources, either live organisms or their active components; nowadays, they are mainly produced by biotechnologies. Biopharmaceuticals are extensively used in the treatment of various diseases such as cardiovascular, metabolic, neurological diseases, cancer, and others for which there are no available therapeutic methods. With the advance of science, biopharmaceuticals have revolutionized the treatment, prevention, and diagnosis of many patients with disabling and life-threatening diseases. Innovative biopharmaceuticals definitely improve the life quality of patients and enhance the effectiveness of the healthcare system. This book encompasses the discovery, production, application, and regulation of biopharmaceuticals to demonstrate their research achievement, prospects, and challenges. We expect the significance of biopharmaceuticals to be revealed and emphasized by this book.

Summary: The focus of this book is on how the U.S. FDA will approve biosimilar drugs, as learned from recent approvals by the FDA. Understanding the limitations of the statutory limits and non-inferiority testing are presented as tools to obviate patient trials and minimize testing of immunogenicity. An in-depth scientific, mathematical and statistical view of the tools required to establish biosimilarity of biological drugs of different complexity -- a must for every developer of biosimilars. Features: First comprehensive analysis based on new guidelines and approval packages of several biosimilars Presents the first approach to challenge FDA in reducing or eliminating any testing in patients. Provides a comprehensive understanding of the U.S. statutory requirements vis-a-vis the regulatory guidelines Provides model CQA and Analytical Similarity testing protocols for cytokines and monoclonal antibodies Allow creation of a fast-to-market pathway to develop biosimilars