Disruption and maturity: the future directions for biologics

Is the UK’s NHS saving enough from the new wave of biosimilars?

These new competitors to blockbuster biologics medicines promise to save money for healthcare systems, and create ‘headroom’ to allow innovative medicines to be adopted.

However, there are clear signs that uptake is patchy across the NHS, and are the savings generated from use of biosimilars supporting the uptake of innovative new medicines or simply ‘filling the potholes’ elsewhere in the health service?

An expert panel assembled by QuintilesIMS in partnership with pharmaphorum explored these issues in a webinar on 20 June.  The following are just some of the questions which were answered in the webinar:

• Will the UK realise the maximum level of saving from biosimilars?
• What European countries are leading the way in biosimilar uptake, and can the NHS emulate them?
• Will the industry continue to invest in cutting-edge research in the UK if the NHS isn’t prepared to fund access?
• In a post-Brexit world, can the UK continue to be a leader in cutting-edge biologics research?

Why watch the webinar?

The webinar brings together key stakeholders from the NHS, pharma industry and QuintilesIMS, who provide data, analysis and policy insights to provide a clear picture of future UK market trends.

The live webinar took place on Tuesday 20 June at 12.30 BST/13.30 CEST/07.30 EDT. To register to view the webinar on-demand, please click here or on the button above/below.

Participants

Maggie Dolan, Specialist Procurement Pharmacist, NHS Commercial Solutions

Maggie achieved her BSc in pharmacy at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and a diploma in clinical pharmacy from Strathclyde University in 1991. She has many years of experience as a hospital clinical pharmacist, primarily in Scotland. She was Chief Pharmacist in Edinburgh in both the adult (West Lothian NHS Trust) and paediatric (Edinburgh sick Children’s Hospital) settings over the period 1993–2005.

Throughout her career, she has developed a keen interest in the safe, effective and cost-effective procurement of medicines to the benefit of both individual patients and the NHS economy. As pharmacy advisor to National Procurement Scotland she was seconded to the Scottish government to work on Pandemic Flu Preparedness. Her current role is as Regional Medicine Procurement Specialist for the South East Coast. She chairs the NHS Biosimilars Group, the Purchasing and Distribution Interest Group and is a member of the Carter Review Group as co-chair of the contracting theme.

Timothy de Gavre, Country Head, Sandoz UK

Tim de Gavre is the Country Head of Sandoz UK. Sandoz is the biosimilars and generics division of the Novartis Pharmaceutical Group. Tim de Gavre is currently Chair of the British Biosimilars Association (BBA), the expert group which represents manufacturers of biosimilars in the UK, a position he has held since 2016. He has recently been elected as the Vice-Chair of the British Generics Manufacturing Association (BGMA).

Mr de Gavre has been appointed to the position of Country Head following several years heading the Specialty Team within Sandoz UK. He has worked within Sandoz for 7 years, initially joining as the Global Head of Strategy for the Biosimilars Business Unit, based in Holzkirchen, Germany. Overall, Tim brings almost 20 years' experience in healthcare, including in consulting at McKinsey & Company and in healthcare venture capital with Frazier Healthcare Ventures.

Sarah Rickwood, Vice President, Thought Leadership, QuintilesIMS

Sarah Rickwood has 20 years’ experience as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, starting at  Accenture’s pharmaceutical strategy practice before joining QuintilesIMS Management Consulting.  She has wide-ranging knowledge of international pharmaceutical industry issues, having worked with most of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies in the US, Europe, Japan, and leading emerging markets.

During her time at QuintilesIMS, Sarah has played a key role in developing the Launch Excellence thought leadership studies and Launch Readiness offerings which provides comprehensive and critical guidance to QuintilesIMS’ pharmaceutical clients during the crucial pre-launch and launch periods for their key brands. In particular, she has advised companies on the launch of current and potential blockbusters in many therapy areas and countries.

Sarah leads a team which puts together more than 180 client presentations a year, and develops new Thought Leadership on launch excellence, biosimilars, commercial analytics, healthcare system changes, blockbusters; the top 10 companies of the future and uptake and access of innovative medicines, social media and pharmaceutical companies, and mobile apps in patient healthcare.

Sarah holds a degree in biochemistry from the University of Oxford.

Angela McFarlane, Market Development Director, QuintilesIMS

Angela works across the UK and Ireland healthcare/life sciences landscape, prioritising environment and policy issues that will impact both client and healthcare systems to 2020. Her reach across the sectors means she is able to readily bring together senior stakeholders from industry, government, patient organisations and health services management to address those challenges collaboratively through the independent and evidence-based solutions from QuintilesIMS. The recent merger of Quintiles with IMS Health enables Angela to offer pharma and healthcare leaders synergistic insights and solutions from clinical research, real world evidence, market insights through to the application of digital solutions.

Angela has worked in life sciences for 34 years. In 1998, she was the founding director of HGS Europe, one of the UKs first market access agencies, which IMS Health acquired in 2013 to enhance its local UK and Ireland Market Access capability.

Prior to founding HGS, Angela was the Marketing Director for 4 years of a specialist Provider hospital, Surgicare. Angela led Surgicare’s shift from a private patient base to a predominantly NHS case-mix by guaranteeing improved outcomes in low acuity surgery (cataracts, varicose veins, hernias) to the patients of fund-holding GPs and Health Authorities across the North West and West Midlands.

Angela spent 9 years in the pharmaceutical industry working for Merck Sharp and Dohme and Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she held both marketing and regional management positions between 1982 and 1991. During that period she launched two angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and a statin.

Angela speaks on the international Market Access circuit and has co-authored a number of IMS Health thought-leader papers on the UK and Irish markets, such as When small becomes big; the new challenges of orphan disease medicines across the EU5.

Paul Tunnah, CEO, pharmaphorum (moderator)

Paul Tunnah is CEO and Founder of pharmaphorum media, which facilitates productive engagement for pharma, bringing healthcare together to drive medical innovation. It combines industry-leading content and social media engagement services with the globally recognised news, information and insight portal pharmaphorum.com, working with pharmaceutical companies, service providers and broader healthcare organisations to help communicate their thought leadership and connect them with relevant stakeholders.