NEW research lasting 54 weeks and sponsored by Novartis' generic and biosimilar arm Sandoz, has revealed that its biosimilars Zessly (infliximab) and Erelzi (etanercept) in rheumatoid arthritis have matched their respective reference drugs on a number of parameters.
Zessly matched its originator counterpart Remicade in terms of safety and efficacy at 54 weeks, even in patients who switched from the reference medicine to Zessly, researchers claimed.
Similarly switching from original biologic Enbrel (by Pfizer) to Erelzi did not impact efficacy and safety in patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis at 48 weeks.
The authors estimated that nearly 320 million people in Europe were expected to have limited access to disease-modifying anti-rheumatic medicines such as these.
Sandoz acquired infliximab rights from Pfizer in Feb 2016 for the 28 EU countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein but Pfizer retained all rights elsewhere.
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