Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Senior Vice President Ken Johnson issued the following statement today regarding appropriate incentives for continued biotechnology innovation:
"PhRMA, along with research universities, patients, healthcare providers, and elected leaders at the state and federal levels, supports the development of a responsible, abbreviated approval pathway for biosimilars that includes a fair period of data protection that is critical for the future of medical progress.
"Legislation moving forward in the U.S. House and Senate provides for patient safety and strikes the appropriate balance between the desire for enhanced competition for biologics, and the need to provide meaningful incentives for innovation.
"Such incentives are vital for ensuring continued development of new biologics that are needed to provide future treatments and cures for such serious ailments as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's and cancer. Already, biologic medicines have revolutionized patient care. In fact, these cutting-edge therapies are among the reasons why American patients with life-threatening diseases, like cancer, are living longer.
"The pathway endorsed through strong bipartisan Congressional votes would allow onto the market biosimilars -- medicines that are similar to, but will never be exactly the same as, the original biologic.
"That key element -- similarity -- factors into investment decisions, because the nature of patent protection for biologics is uncertain in the context of biosimilars. Because biologics are extremely complex, patents may cover just part of the molecule or simply cover the process for its manufacture.
"In the future, should this legislation become law, a biosimilar manufacturer using its own manufacturing process to create a biosimilar that differs slightly from an innovator biologic would have the potential to circumvent patents -- while qualifying for an abbreviated application.
"Economists and the venture capitalists whose private investments shore up this vital, yet vulnerable sector agree: 12 years of data protection, at a bare minimum, are needed to help recoup the significant development costs for biologic innovators. That, however, does not constitute market exclusivity. Companies could still seek approval of competing biologics using their own data, but for those 12 years no biosimilar competitor could rely on innovators' hard-earned data, collected during development that may span a decade, or more, to seek approval.
"For many biologics on the market right now, the 12-year data protection clock began ticking long ago, when federal regulators approved the therapy. In addition to the brand-to-brand competition that already occurs for biologics, those biologic medicines could face biosimilar competitors relatively soon; multiple biosimilars are already on the market in Europe.
"Biosimilar versions of current biologics may well be approved before 12 years have elapsed after the law's enactment, but 12 years of data protection is important to provide incentives for manufacturers to create the next wave of innovative biologics.
"Giving short shrift to incentives for innovation would grind to a halt uniquely American innovation, moving critically important R&D -- and tens of thousands of U.S. jobs -- overseas. Right now, 80 percent of the world's biotech research occurs in the U.S.
"A diverse group of supporters agree with the need for adequate data protection, from patients eagerly awaiting new therapies to elected officials who understand how tenuous U.S. leadership in biologics research could become if incentives for innovation are weakened: