Dr Neal Dave Expresses Excitement for the First PD-1 Inhibitor Biosimilar

Neal Dave, PharmD, the executive director of pharmacy at Texas Oncology, discussed physician anticipation for the first biosimilars for programmed death (PD)-1 inhibitors.

Transcript:

Do you see much excitement in the oncology community for the arrival of biosimilars for PD-1 inhibitors?

Dave: Yes, I don't know when the patents expire on the PD-1 inhibitors. But yeah, when their patents are expiring for sure. Their indication list is so large, especially for some of them where you can use them in so many different types of cancers. There are some indications that are not specific to a type of cancer. It's just based on your genetic testing. So, it's very valuable to help decrease that cost. There are top drugs that were used, just because of all the indications that they have. And so, whenever a biosimilar comes out, it'll be an exciting time and, again, just like how we've had in the last few years with the 3 major biosimilars that have come out, it's significantly decreased the cost of therapy and I think the same thing will happen with PD-1 inhibitors.