Anton Franken, MD, PhD: Monitoring Patients Who Switch to Biosimilars

Anton Franken, MD, PhD, endocrinologist, discusses how closely patients who switch to biosimilars must be monitored.

Transcript:

It depends on the kind of drug. If you look at insulin, it’s a very safe drug. It’s a small drug. It's a very safe drug, but you must follow patients who react. If you look at [tumor necrosis factor, TNF] blockers, infliximab, they have a chance for immunogenicity, so you have to follow them for a long time, but the discussion in the last session was [that] if a biosimilar is approved by [the European Medicines Agency, EMA], it is equally effective and safe, because all the aspects were researched during the registration process. So I think you must follow a patients, but not too intensively.