The biosimilars market has also evolved in a couple of unexpected ways: 

1. Teva decided not to wait for a distinct U.S. biosimilars pathway, and instead submitted a full BLA for Neupoval (which was accepted). Although Neupoval’s approval is now delayed, with the 12-year exclusivity period in the BCPI Act far exceeding similar periods in the EU and Canada, more companies may follow Teva’s approach instead of navigating the U.S. biosimilar regime.
2. At the JP Morgan conference last week, the CEO’s of Amgen and Biogen Idec, two companies that have been built on innovator biologics, both openly discussed their own plans to produce biosimilars. Although Amgen’s Sharer said the company “should participate in an intelligent way without disturbing the core business,” and was looking to Asian and Latin American markets, Biogen Idec’s Scangos said flatly that “[t]he next decade will be about access and cost as much as it is about innovation,” and that biosimilars are “a low risk way to generate substantial revenue.”

As the regulatory and business environments continue to evolve, we’ll continue to keep an eye on the latest developments.

This post is the fourth in a series briefly outlining the biotech industry trends we’ve been following on the blog and noting some recent developments, plus directions for 2011.

1. Pfizer linked up with India’s Biocon in a deal that will see Biocon take the lead in development of four biosimilar insulin products that gives Biocon $200 million up front. Coverage of the deal in the Business Standard highlights the country’s overall strength in biosimilars, which fall midway between new molecule development and small molecule generics in terms of the R&D and manufacturing sophistication required. Biocon cites the deal as proof that India can move up the value chain, doing for biosimilars what it did for generics. This is especially true if they continue to attract backing and partnerships from the Pfizers of the world.
2. Novartis’ generics unit, Sandoz, reported Q3 revenues of $292 million from a single biosimilar product — enoxaparin, a copy of Sanofi-Aventis’ anticoagulant Lovenox — which is not expected to hit blockbuster status in its own right. As we have noted before, the high level of expertise required to make biosimilars creates a high barrier to entry and contributes to the field’s attractiveness to traditional pharmas (e.g., Pfizer, above) as well as to the major generics players. FierceBiotech notes further growth is expected as the first biosimilar antibodies hit the market in 2014-2015.

The Economist picked up the relevant trends in an article today entitled “Attack of the Biosimilars“:

1) “Innovator” pharmas are moving into the biosimilars business, reversing their recent role as the predominant plaintiffs in IP litigation:

“…it is ironic that the next great opportunity for traditional drugs firms is to do to the biotechnology interlopers exactly what the generics firms have done to them: shred their profit margins with cheaper copies…”

2) India in moving up the innovation value chain, increasing that country’s incentive to protect IP more forcefully:

“And as if to remind the world that new ideas don’t all come from America, it is the Indian firm that will design and manufacture the original drugs; Pfizer will only market them.”

Reuters says that the small number of requests (six) received by EMA so far “reflects the difficulties of making such copycat medicines [antibodies]” but with the earliest therapeutic antibodies coming off patent (in Europe) in 2014, I expect these initial inquiries are just the tip of the iceberg. Of couse, biosimilars are hard (as we’ve noted); but a lucrative opportunity of that scale will not go untapped.

Meanwhile, as expected based on the draft notice leaked in September, the FDA is holding public meetings on the implementation of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (i.e., the biosimilars legislation). The full Federal Register notice (pdf) is up, and Mark Sernak at eyeonfda.com has extracted the questions posted for comment.

In addition to a long list of scientific and technical questions, there are a couple of inquiries that I’d highlight from a corporate law perspective:

1. Which types of related entities may be ineligible for a period of 12-year exclusivity for a subsequent BLA, given the “potential transfer of BLAs from one corporate entity to another and the complexities of corporate and business relationships”; and
2. Whether the existing fee structure under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) should be considered as a model in establishing a user fee structure for biosimilar applications.

Interested in attending or in submitting a comment? The FDA’s meeting information page is here, and it includes webcast access for November 2 and November 3.

The BPCI Act (42 U.S.C. 262(k)(8)) provides for the FDA to author guidance “with respect to the licensure of a biological product” — pretty broad, so we’ll have to stay tuned for the actual meeting notice. However, the legislation provides some hint in permitting “product class-specific guidance” specifying criteria that will be used to determine whether a biological product is highly similar to a reference product in such product class.

If the FDA decides to move ahead with product class guidance, it would likely specify the criteria that will be used to determine whether a biological product meets the standards for “interchangeability”.

In other cases, the FDA may determine that “the science and experience [to date] … with respect to a product or product class … does not allow approval of a [biosimilar] for such product or product class.”

Bottom line: following the FDA’s November meetings, biosimilars will be one step closer in the U.S.

P.S. Adam Feuerstein cites Alec Vachon (@HEALTH_NOTES) on Twitter for breaking the story Friday. Not sure why I haven’t found him before, but Alec is now added to my Biopharma-IT-Health Twitter list.

• Interested in “A New Kind of Non-Dilutive Financing and Fundraising: Partnering With Not-for-Profits”? Get an early start at our trends page on Commercialization by non-profit foundations!
• Does “Comparative Effectiveness Research and the Government Role” or “Transforming Health Care Through Personalized Medicine” catch your eye? Check out the stories we’ve highlighted on Comparative Effectiveness and Personalized Medicine!
• Of course, with the new regulatory pathway created by Health Reform legislation in the U.S., Follow-on Biologics (aka Biosimilars) are all the rage at BIO this year.
• and the whole thing kicks off with Lilly’s General Counsel speaking on “Leveraging IP to Spur Global Biotechnology Innovation, Investment and Jobs” – emphsizing the link between IP Constituencies and Global Innovation that we have been following for some time.

Stay tuned for news from these and other sessions as we hit the conference next week!

SEBs are a class of drugs that the EU calls “biosimilars” and the U.S. calls “a class of biologics we may recognize one day if health reform passes”“follow-on biologics,” but the gist is that they are copycat versions of existing large-molecule drugs.  Because of their complexity, different versions of the same biologic cannot be characterized as identical.  Hence “similar”.

Regulators are seeking a balance with respect to how much biosimilars can rely on data from the original (“reference”) drug in applying for their own approval, and with respect to how long to protect the reference drug’s data.  Here are some highlights of Health Canada’s approach:

• A full New Drug Submission required for SEBs, (not an abbreviated submission, as for small-moelcule generics).
• The data exclusivity period — the time that must elapse before an SEB can use the data from the reference biologic’s application — is 6 years.
• Studies comparing the reference biologic to the SEB must be conducted in a side-by-side format.

For more information, check out the Ogilvy Renault Pharma in Brief publication, or read the whole Guidance Document.

FDA approval isn’t Teva’s only hurdle, though.  Amgen’s U.S. patents on Neupogen don’t expire until 2013, and the two companies are currently litigating the issue of whether Teva’s product infringes those patents.  Furthermore, the Dow Jones article quotes Credit Suisse analyst Michael Aberman who points out that in the EU Teva’s product only has 5% market share, competing against both the original Neupogen and Amgen’s longer-acting Neulasta.

Investors’ reaction? Teva shares were up 1.4 percent, Amgen shares were off minutely.

My bottom line: If you want to read tea-leaves to predict the approach other biosimilar products will take (and I do), watch the Neupoval BLA closely.  The calculus undertaken by other potential market entrants will weigh Teva’s success and costs with this approach against the costs of any Congressional requirement for data exclusivity period and any FDA requirement for clinical trials in an eventual biosimilars regime.

Follow our coverage of North American biosimilars news on this Biotech Trends in 2010 page.

What does this mean for a biosimilars pathway?  Will there be one?  What will the exclusivity period be?  The Senate Finance bill is silent on the topic, and the two other bills both include a biosimilars pathway with a 12-year exclusivity period.

Twelve years makes the Biotechnology Industry Association (BIO) and the National Venture Capital Association pretty happy, but the Obama administration and  the FTC argue in favo(u)r of a much shorter period.

Today, a new opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine generated a lot of buzz, mostly because it argues for a 5-year exclusivity period (but also because it was an odd roll-out for NEJM’s new conflicts disclosure policy).

When the In Vivo Blog polled the question earlier this year, the majority vote was for 10-12 years; but me and some peeps on twitter (hi @InVivoBlogChris and Maureen @FierceBiotech) and in real life (anonymous) thought at the time the number would land under 10 years.  I’m sticking to that bet.

• On Wednesday, two Democrats told the Obama administration where to stick its 7-year “generous compromise”:  Howard Dean published an op-ed supporting a 12-year exclusivity period and Bloomberg wrote up a renewed effort by Senator Kennedy for a 13.5-year exclusivity period.
• Then, a study released Friday by the National Venture Capital Association (pdf) calculates the cost of capital for early-stage biotech companies at over 20%.  The accompanying press release (pdf) claims this is twice as high as that used in Brill’s study supporting a 7-year period, and presents an argument for a 12-year exclusivity period for biologics.  The NVCA “executive summary” (pdf) also criticises the recent FTC report favouring a 7-year data exclusivity period – arguing that the FTC analysis counts on patents to provide protection for 12 years, so the only effect of a shorter exclusivity period would be to redirect investment toward products with strong patent protection and away from (possibly medically superior) products with weaker patent protection.

A couple of thoughts:

1. The exclusivity period in the EU is 8 years (data) +2 years (marketing) +1 year (for new indications), and the current proposal in Canada is 6 years, so a baseline of 12-14 years’ protection would leave the U.S. system paying for exclusive pricing longer than other major markets.  I’m fine if the U.S. decides to further subsidize pharma innovation, but I’d prefer a more transparent approach with less market distortion; and
2. It’s hard to balance rationally between data exclusivity and patent exclusivity when the patent system is in significant flux.  Having patent reform as a moving piece (or as part of biosimilars legislation) only muddies the debate.

Update: The WSJ picks these up this morning too.  Here’s the NVCA story, and here’s the one on Kennedy’s efforts and the debate it’s generating in committee.

I’ve had my money on an 8-10 year period for a while now as the compromise between the competing Waxman and Eshoo-Barton bills … The InVivo Blog has a funny take on how a 10-year period might be injected into the dialogue.

BIO points to a post by Prof. Holman criticising Waxman’s 5-year period (now clearly an outlier) and also the patent challenge/enforcement provisions of Waxman’s bill.