Julie Reed Previews Biosimilar Session at Asembia 2023

With 8 Humira biosimilars launching July 2023, Julie Reed, executive director of the Biosimilars Forum, will be presenting at Asembia 2023 to discuss excitement, concerns, and next steps for the biosimilars industry.

Transcript

Which sessions should attendees look out for at Asembia 2023?

Well, I'm excited to be talking there, so I will selfishly talk about my session. I will be talking about what we call the "watershed moment" for biosimilars, again with the 8 Humira biosimilars launching this July, and we're going to talk about what we're concerned about. And we're going to have a call to action—for especially this audience—for this audience to change their current business model and to advocate for access to lower list cost biosimilars. We need them, we need PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers] to support biosimilars. They were with us when we went to get the law passed, and we need them now that we're launching these critically important lower cost medicines. We need them now to change their business models for biosimilars. They need to put biosimilars and preferred status and formularies, they need to drive uptake and incentivize their use and go for the competition that we so need in this country, and we need them to be a partner in the success of this industry. I think that's one of the most—I hope it'll be one of the most—exciting pieces of the conference, but I'm looking forward to learning more as well.

What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk on the current state of biosimilars and the future of the industry?

I hope that they will take away excitement about the fact that there's these incredibly important and life-changing medicines. Also [that] costly medicines have competition, and they have the opportunity to give providers and patients and consumers lower cost and competition in this important area. That should be exciting. They should be excited that manufacturers and members of the Biosimilar Forum want to invest and develop these products. They should walk away, though, too with concerns that there is a stakeholder out there limiting access—patient access, family access, taxpayer access, government access—to a lower cost product. And they should walk away and ask that question "why?" and they should demand change.

Transcript lightly edited for clarity.