FDA Biosimilar Naming Proposal Pits Providers, Patients Against Insurers, Pharmacies

Suffix-based, distinguishable names cheered by physicians and patient advocacy groups as enhancing patient safety; payers and pharmacists object, saying plan adds unneeded complexity and will require expensive overhauls in databases and operating systems.

FDA's final decision-making on a naming convention for biosimilar products will have to take into account deep divisions among non-biopharma industry stakeholders, with prescribers and patients lined up on one side against insurers and pharmacies on the other.

Medical professional societies, along with patient and disease advocacy groups, overwhelming support the agency's proposal to include a distinguishing suffix in the nonproprietary names of all biological and biosimilar products,...

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