NHS cost efficiencies: biosimilars to the rescue?

A 2015 report applauded the switch, undertaken by prescribers, from branded to generic drugs over a 40-year period for improving productivity and saving the NHS billions of pounds.1 The policies and actions needed to achieve these gains involved generating and supporting a clinical culture that encourages generic prescribing, technological developments to make generic prescribing easy to do and benchmarking and feedback through the collection and dissemination of detailed information on general practice prescribing.1 Though primary care savings from generic prescribing are still possible,2 it is biosimilars that are now the focus of attention, particularly in the hospital setting, though primary care prescribing of biosimilars also attracts consideration.3