Biosimilars market to increase to $61.47 billion

Research conducted reveals that the market for biosimilars is expected to reach a value of $61.47 billion by 2025.

The report suggests that it is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of 34.2 percent over the period, as some major biological drugs are fast approaching their patent cliff. This area is the most significant driving factor for the biosimilars market, and in 2016, the market for biosimilars was valued at $4.6 billion.

In November 1997 the US Food and drug Administration approved the monoclonal antibody rituximab. The US patent expired in September 2016, and Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Pfizer are all focusing on the development of a biosimilar drug of rituximab.

Due to the cost savings of biosimilar drugs in comparison to patented biologics, there is a large increase in the pharmaceutical industry for the development of biosimilar drugs.

Along with the cost effectiveness of biosimilar drugs, the high prevalence of chronic disorders globally is also a major factor contributing to the success of this area, and the continued market growth seen. As numbers of individuals with cancer, diabetes, anaemia and other chronic diseases continues to increase, there is a high demand for cost effective biosimilar drugs to treat these conditions. 

Biosimilar drugs are, as the name suggests, very similar to the patented, and approved biologic drugs. They possess similar medicinal properties in terms of efficacy, potency, and safety to the original drugs.

The US is known as the country with the highest health expenditure, due to highly priced, patented pharmaceutical drugs. It has recently put emphasis on cutting costs related. In India and Japan, price regulations and reduced health budgets have also pushed up prices.

Government regulations for the development and production of biosimilars could hinder market growth. Various organisations, such as the European Medicines Agency, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and China Food and Drug Administration, all have diverse regulations for drug approvals. These regualtions could make the process of developing biosimilars more lengthy and tedious.

The full report is available here.