<p>Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Towards Biosimilars and Interchangeable Products: A Prescriptive Insight by the Pharmacists</p>

Abstract

Background Pharmacists being the drug experts need to be well aware of the applied handling of biosimilar medicines (BSMs). They are an integral educator, trailblazer, and advocate of biosimilar integration across all clinical settings. Therefore, the current study was conducted to assess the pharmacists’ knowledge, attitude, and practices of integrating BSMs into clinical practice. Methods The cross-sectional study was conducted from August 2019 to November 2019. The community pharmacies, clinical and academic settings in Karachi were approached for gathering the responses of pharmacists towards BSMs and interchangeable products using a 30-item survey form. Pearson correlation and independent sample t -test were used to identify the relationship among independent variables and the responses, considering p values <0.05 as statistically significant. Results Overall, there were 305 survey forms used with a response rate of 87.14%. More than 80% of the respondents have good knowledge about the definition, characteristics, safety and efficacy, compatibility, cost issues, and utilization of BSMs. Around half of the respondents (48.9%, [95% CI 46.6–51.2]) were confident in using BSMs in clinical practice. However, they were concerned about the BSM’s safety profile (45.2%, [95% CI 42.1–48.3]), quality (30.2%, [95% CI 28.3–32.1]), and efficacy issues (32.3%, [95% CI 31.2–37.5]). Conclusion The findings revealed that pharmacists were well informed about the BSMs. However, some of the responses to the attitude demonstrated a lack of understanding of the application of that knowledge. The respondents persuaded that advanced patterns of diseases, product marketing stipulations, and need for better patient care drives higher demand for developing BSMs and were enthusiastic about gaining more insight to integrate BSMs into routine clinical practice.

Progress in oncology biosimilars till 2020: Scrutinizing comparative studies of biosimilar monoclonal antibodies

“…Due to the need for superior patient care, stipulations for product marketing and advanced disease patterns navigate the increasing demand for development of biosimilar medicines. 41 A perspective of pharmacist and contemplation for application of biosimilars related to therapeutic oncology in practice has been given according to a study published in American Journal of Health System Pharmacy in 2019. Review of formulary of biosimilars has provided some important considerations which include the factors from economical aspect, data from both aspects of quantity and quality obtained from relative clinical trials, reliability of manufacturer and obstacles linked with including biosimilars in application. 25…”

Is There Any Research Evidence Beyond Surveys and Opinion Polls on Automatic Substitution of Biological Medicines? A Systematic Review

“…The majority (56%, 15/27) of the included studies were conducted in Europe [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43], followed by North America (n = 4) [44][45][46][47], Australia (n = 2) [48,49], Pakistan (n = 1) [50], Russia (n = 1) [51], Tunisia (n = 1) [52], Latin America (n = 1) [53], mixed in France and Canada (n = 1) [54], and mixed in Asian countries (n = 1) [55]. The study…”

“…participants were physicians (n = 12) [30,36,37,39,44,45,47,48,[51][52][53]55], pharmacists (n = 5) [31,38,43,50,54], patients (n = 4) [32,34,40,49], payers (n = 1) [46], or various stakeholders (n = 5) [29,33,35,41,42]. All semi-structured interviews had participants of various stakeholders and were from Europe [29,33,35,42].…”

“…All studies except one [46] that received funding from the pharmaceutical industry (Abbvie, Janssen, Pfizer, Sandoz) or a lobbying organization (Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines) (n = 9) reported negative substitution perceptions from the participants [30, 40, 41, 44-46, 48, 51, 53]. Five studies reported positive perceptions [33,34,38,49,54] and four mixed or uncertain perceptions [29,35,46,50]. Of the studies with positive findings, two surveys were conducted among pharmacists [38,54], one among patients [49] and one interview study among various stakeholders [33].…”

“…Of the included surveys (n = 23) six (26%) [34,38,41,47,49,50] were assessed as of high quality and six (26%) [30,36,44,46,48,53] as of low quality (see ESM 3). The rest of the surveys (n = 11) were of moderate quality.…”