For biosimilars to win, AbbVie has to lose, according to Boehringer Ingelheim.
The German drugmaker on Wednesday said that its goal of getting more uptake for Humira biosimilars will require pushing AbbVie’s drug off of PBM formularies. Boehringer’s high-concentration, citrate-free formulation of its Humira biosimilar Cyltezo won FDA approval on Wednesday.
The company’s formulary push follows a significant uptick in market penetration by Sandoz’s Humira biosimilar, thanks to a new partnership with CVS Health that cut AbbVie’s Humira from its spot on major national formularies. Boehringer is now looking to make a similar move, and it already has a relationship with Cigna’s Evernorth to reduce out-of-pocket costs with its biosimilar.
Stephen Pagnotta“The removal of Humira from formulary is what is needed in order for biosimilars really to take off,” Stephen Pagnotta, biosimilar commercial lead at Boehringer Ingelheim, told Endpoints News in an interview. “And I think that’s the goal that we hope our payers will eventually get to.”
While he said he can’t speak to when the top PBMs like Express Scripts or Optum might pull the trigger and remove brand-name Humira from their formularies, “we’re optimistic that that trigger will happen sooner than later. We’ll be in a good position to sort of service those patients, once they they are forced or told that they need to go on a biosimilar as Humira is no longer available.”
AbbVie did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AbbVie chief commercial officer Jeff Stewart said on the company’s earnings call last week that the CVS removal was expected, and that sales would continue to face pressure through 2024.
Humira biosimilars now control about 43% of the brand name’s market share, according to an Evercore ISI investor note last month, with Sandoz’s Hyrimoz contributing about 93% of all biosimilars two weeks after the CVS switch. It’s an abrupt change that shows the power of the payers — until February, brand-name Humira controlled 96% of the market.
Humira’s recent overwhelming dominance effectively pushed Boehringer to reduce its sales staff for Cyltezo, which it did by a “low double-digit number,” Reuters has previously reported.
“It doesn’t mean that we’re giving up on Cyltezo,” Pagnotta said. “It’s a difficult decision that we had to streamline. But we’re optimizing our resources right now in order to make sure that the long term viability of the brand is there.”