Amgen launches Humira competitor

Abstract

After years of legal jousting by the companies involved, the first drug has launched to challenge AbbVie’s Humira as a biological treatment for inflammatory disease. Amgen’s Amjevita is the first in a string of nine biosimilars —closely related versions of a biologic drug that function comparably—from several firms that are becoming available in the coming year. Drug developers are watching closely: Amjevita’s sales performance in the next few months will indicate the market’s appetite for biosimilars across the US pharmaceutical industry, experts say. “This is probably the most important biosimilar launch in the past couple of years, and probably for the next few years,” says Andrew Mulcahy, a senior economist at the nonprofit research organization RAND Corporation. “This is the drug to watch.” Biosimilars are the biologic equivalent of generic versions of small-molecule drugs. One difference is that, like the original biologics, biosimilars are costly to develop and challenging to