French Hospital to Drop Remicade in Favor of a Biosimilar

Reuters reports that after receiving a 45% discount from Remicade (infliximab), the central purchasing agency for the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) will use the biosimilar version of infliximab instead of branded Remicade.

Remicade accounts for 25% of Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical revenues, according toForbes. Although the patent for Remicade expired in Europe, giving way to biosimilars for that product, the US patent for Remicade does not expire until 2018.

The biosimilar for infliximab was sold to Norway recently for a 69% discount, an even better deal than what France received, though Reuters reports that it was from another supplier. Despite the fact that many analysts initially estimated that biosimilar discounts would be around 15–20%, in reality, the discounts have been significantly larger, a fact that may force branded drug manufacturers to re-evaluate their pricing strategies.