KFF Health News
•85% Informative
Makers of biosimilars must still work within a health care system in which basic economics rarely seems to hold sway.
For real competition to take hold, the big pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, would have to position the new drugs favorably in health plans.
Humira has enjoyed high-priced U.S. exclusivity for 20 years .
AbbVie's strategy was to warn health plans that if they recommended biosimilars over Humira they would lose rebates on purchases of Skyrizi and Rinvoq , two drugs with no generic imitators that are each listed at about $120,000 a year.
The Federal Trade Commission began a major probe of the companies last year .
Critics of the top PBMs see the Humira biosimilar as a potential turning point for the secretive business processes.
CVS Caremark announced in August that it was creating a partnership with drugmaker Sandoz to market its own cut-rate version of Humira .
Caremark didn’t appear to be fully embracing even its own biosimilar, Caremark said.
Doctors seem reluctant to move patients off Humira , but some say there’s virtually no difference in biosimilars.
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