Is everyone being forced off of Remicade?

Yes, but this has been going on since Inflectra came out, it's a biosimilar to Remicade. Several years ago a lot of members in the crohns forum had to switch, most of them did fine. Drs would appeal but insurance dictates in 99% of the time. Inflectra is cheaper & of course money is the object with insurance.

Take care.

PS there are several clinical studies examining the effect of switching between the original drug and biosimilars, so this is not a case of insurance companies doing something without medical justification.

One example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc8972297/

In the end it is to our advantage that biosimilars exist as it creates competition in the drugs market and forces the price down (also for remicade). That in turn may allow more patients to access biologic treatments (don't forget that outside the US it can be much more difficult for patients to be approved for, or have access to, a biologic.)

CC I saw you had to switch and I can imagine it's scary when you don't know if inflectra is going to work as well. I hope it will be fine.

It is about the money, but in this case it's because biologics are obscenely expensive. As an example I had to spend a year messing around with prednisone and different doses of azathioprine before I was allowed to try any biologic therapy. I really lost a year of my life from that. Going on a biologic was like night and day compared with any treatment I'd been on before. I believe it's the same system in the UK and other European countries. And that's not because of insurance companies making demands, but national health services having a limited budget leading to enforced protocols. I think it's even harder in lower-income countries to access these kind of medicines.

So yes, it sucks that individuals have to switch from an established treatment that has kept them stable, but if you want to be angry at someone I would blame the makers of remicade above the insurance companies, for selling their drug at such a high price.

I just plucked the number half the price out of thin air (or from having some idea how much it costs in Europe).

I am being forced to switch too. It feels pretty scary.

poopydoop said...

It is about the money, but in this case it's because biologics are obscenely expensive. As an example I had to spend a year messing around with prednisone and different doses of azathioprine before I was allowed to try any biologic therapy. I really lost a year of my life from that. Going on a biologic was like night and day compared with any treatment I'd been on before. I believe it's the same system in the UK and other European countries. And that's not because of insurance companies making demands, but national health services having a limited budget leading to enforced protocols.

I think this is one of the reasons that we see less posting on this forum, biologicals are so affective at treating IBDs compared to previous medications that were available to us.

Prior to biologicals I had hospital stays that were billed over $750,000 each. So biologicals can offset costs elsewhere if it keeps us out of the hospital.

I suspect that most new patients in the U.S. are now started on biosimilars if available rather than the name brands. I know for Remicade there are a lot of biosimilars to choose from. Don't know if there are any biosimilars for others.

It is infuriating that these drug makers can make a slight tweak to the way the biological is delivered and then they get to extend their patent protection even longer in the US. Example: Humira.