Last May, the government of Quebec announced, for its public drug plan, the implementation of a biosimilar switching policy. This new policy will be in effect as of April 12, 2022. The primary objective of this policy is to obtain savings compared to the reference biologic drug (i.e. the original patented version). But what about the efficacity and safety of these biosimilar drugs? Are the savings sufficient to justify mandatory switching?
In order to prepare ourselves for the arrival of biosimilar switching, TELUS Health offers us a series of articles that answer several questions relating to biosimilar drugs. Here are the first two articles:
Part 1: https://plus.telushealth.co/blogs/health-benefits/en/drug-plans-decoded-biosimilars-part-1/
Part 2: https://plus.telushealth.co/blogs/health-benefits/en/drug-plans-decoded-biosimilars-part-2/
Private insurers
It will be interesting to see how private insurers react to the new policy announced by the government of Quebec. Some insurers have already announced that the status quo will apply despite the new policy, meaning that the insureds will maintain their choice to use or not the biosimilar drug. Other insurers have indicated their intention to apply mandatory biosimilar switching (like the public drug plan) to all their insurance contracts. Some other insurers are working on the possibility of offering the policyholders the choice to apply or not mandatory biosimilar switching (as it is currently the case for generic substitution). Note that unlike the generic substitution that can be done at the pharmacy, the biosimilar substitution must be prescribed by the physician.