Christina Ha, MD, on Biosimilars in IBD: Here to Stay

Dr Ha explains how the introduction of biosimilars to tumor necrosis factor inhibitors and in the future, other biologics, can expand access to these essential medications for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease. 

Christina Ha, MD, is a gastroenterologist specializing in the care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease at Mayo Clinic-Arizona.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, my name is Christina Ha. I'm from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. I'm here at AIBD regionals, and I spoke today about biosimilars and IBD. So the most important takeaways for clinical practice regarding biosimilars is that they're here, and they're here to stay. But they're not necessarily a negative. In fact, they're a positive because they can increase access to important medications, such as, for now, the anti-TNFs, but more biosimilars for some of our other mechanisms will be available in the future. But it's really important as you're talking about biosimilars to your patients to use the right terminology. They're not generics, but they're essentially clinically equivalent to their reference products. So there's no differences in terms of the indications, the modes of administration in terms of infusions versus injections, the dosing strategy, the monitoring strategy, and the safety profiles.

So we should be just as comfortable using biosimilars for right now for IBD to infliximab and adalimumab as we are the reference products. And as we continue to develop our confidence in these biosimilars, which we should have a lot of, because they went through thorough studies in order to get their FDA approval, we should make sure that our patients feel confident in them as well. Because it's not about brand names, it's about mechanisms of action and getting them to the right target so that they can optimize their quality of life.