Some Humira Biosimilar Customers Are Taking a Wait-and-See Approach

First of four parts

Next year is looming large for the biosimilar market and the patients who take biologics, the clinicians who prescribe them, the companies that make and sell them, and the insurers who pay for them (along with patients). Humira (adalimumab), an anti-inflammatory biologic that is the all-times sales leaders among pharmaceutical products, is finally expected to face some biosimilar competition in 2023. At least seven and perhaps as many as 11 biosimilars to Humira may come on the market next year.

Related: Humira, the biosimilars are coming, the biosimilars are coming!

Hadlima (adalimumab-bwwd) figures to be one of the leading Humira biosimilars.

Tony Hagen, a freelance writer and a regular contributor to Managed Healthcare Executive®, recently interviewed Tom Newcomer, head of U.S. market access for Samsung Bioepis, the South Korean company that manufactures Hadlima. Organon, headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, has partnered with Samsung Bioepis and will be marketing Halima in the U.S.

In this segment of the interview, Newcomer talks about the FDA’s approval of both low- and high-concentration versions of Hadlima and how the two versions might be an advantage for the drug as it takes on Humira and a waves of its biosimilars. He says the Hadlima products will come on the market “on or after” July 2023.

Newcomer also discusses how the Humira biosimilars might jockey for position in what will suddenly be a crowded marketplace for Humira biosimilars.

“We have had customers who have said, ‘Wait, there are going to be a lot of you out there. We are going to wait to see who can drive the market share — get patients over to their adalimumab biosimilar — and then make a decision after that,’” Newcomer told Hagen.