A robust and complex process ensuring structural and clinical comparability is used to demonstrate a biosimilar’s clinical comparability to the reference product.
Data on pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, immunogenicity, safety profile, and efficacy are collected.
Adapted from: FDA. Biosimilar product regulatory review and approval. 2018.1
Developing biosimilars has been made possible due to modern analytical advances in characterization and development of biologics1:
Accurate analytics allow assessment of critical quality attributes in the molecule that may impact clinical activity. These methods contribute to building a fingerprint of quality attributes for the reference drug.
Biosimilars are assessed for similarity to the reference medicine based upon3:
Indications already studied in a reference product can also be approved for the biosimilar of that product through a process called “extrapolation”1
A biosimilar must show no clinically meaningful differences from its reference biologic in terms of safety profile, purity, and potency4
Adapted from: Wolff-Holz, et al. 2018.