AbbVie's Humira Gets a U.S. Rival, But Costs Could Stay High

Jan 31 (Reuters) - U.S. patients will finally get access to cheaper versions of AbbVie Inc’s (ABBV.N) blockbuster arthritis drug Humira this year, but the cost savings are expected to be limited.

Rival drugmaker Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) on Tuesday launched Amjevita, the first biosimilar version of AbbVie’s 20-year-old drug, with two tiers of pricing. One sets a 5% discount to Humira’s monthly price of $6,922. The other will be about half price but may not be widely available.
Most patients’ co-insurance costs are set as a percentage of list price and are expected to be calculated off the higher price.

At least another seven Humira biosimilars are expected this summer and could debut with discounted list prices. Even then, patient groups, pharmacists, doctors and academics said they will be obscured by the U.S. private insurance system of middlemen negotiation and after-market discounts called rebates.
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) say that the deep discounts they receive are returned to insurers and employers to lower their overall medical costs.

Benjamin Rome, a drug pricing researcher at Harvard Medical School, said introduction of biosimilars in the United States has not sent prices tumbling as originally expected.

Unlike pills, which have extremely cheap generic copies, complex, expensive biologic drugs made from living cells cannot be exactly duplicated. Their closest alternatives are called biosimilars.
"The bottom line is it’s feasible that even if prices for Humira and biosimilars go down, this could be in the form of higher rebates to PBMs rather than actual lower prices that are passed onto patients," Rome said.

The U.S. pays the highest drug prices in the world, in part because many different private sector companies do not have the power of a single government payer.

The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will allow the government’s Medicare program for people aged 65 and older to negotiate prices of its most costly medicines, but drugs like Humira with direct competition are excluded.

Humira - the world's biggest selling non-COVID prescription drug - is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and psoriasis.

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