Provider Buy-in and Education of Biosimilars

EP: 1.Overview of Biosimilars in Oncology

EP: 2.Interchangeability of Biosimilars

EP: 3.Role of Immunogenicity in Biosimilars

EP: 4.Using Secondary Patents and Skinny Labels

EP: 5.Adopting Biosimilars in Clinical Practice

EP: 6.Challenges and Management of Adopting Biosimilars

EP: 7.Optimizing P&T Process for Biosimilar Adoption

EP: 8.Overcoming Barriers With Adopting Biosimilars

EP: 9.Challenges for Coverage of Biosimilars

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EP: 10.Provider Buy-in and Education of Biosimilars

EP: 11.Impact of COVID-19 on Adoption of Biosimilars

EP: 12.Strategies for Biosimilar Adoption

Bhavesh Shah, RPh, BCOP: When you’re going on this journey for adopting a biosimilar, is there buy-in that you need to get from your providers to get a biosimilar onto formulary? Brandon, I know you’re involved with the P&T [pharmacy and therapeutics] process. How do you guys adopt biosimilars into practice with providers at the table? How are they incorporated into the process?

Brandon Dyson, PharmD, BCOP, BCPS:Just to clarify, I’m not directly involved with the P&T committee. The pharmacy is, but I personally am not. But they’re also very transparent. We get these informative updates of, “This is what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” so everyone is in tune with why we did what we did, which is fantastic. The communication is great. What’s happening is we’re a physician-owned company. Physicians are involved, and there’s leadership from all walks. They look at data and the studies, and they obviously are going to look at contract pricing. One manufacturer might have more indications. For example, in the case of rituximab, this particular product has a little more crossover, which makes it easier. Or perhaps it’s just cheaper for us at the end of the day; we have a better contract pricing. All those things go into it. Will it satisfy our values pathway? Will it meet the needs of the company? They look at all those, and they’ll go with what they feel has strongest data based off the studies that got the biosimilar approved and those other things.

Bhavesh Shah, RPh, BCOP:It’s important to have a physician champion involved in the process because they are also the decision makers. We’ve identified that having a provider champion helps any of the gaps that you identified with other providers, that there is a lead that needs to happen at initiation, and they’re there to help guide other providers who may not be on board with certain biosimilars. Having a provider champion is key, and as you said, because you guys are a provider organization, if they don’t have a buy-in, then that’s going to impede the adoption of biosimilars.

Transcript edited for clarity.