What About Offering a Financial Incentive Directly to Clinical Units to Encourage the Use of Biosimilars? Results of a Two-Year National Experiment in France

Background Regarding the low penetration of biosimilars in the French market, in 2018, the government introduced two mutually exclusive financial incentives to increase biosimilar use. They redirect 20% (general case) or 30% (experimental case) of the price difference between the reference product a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied health economics and health policy 2023-09, Vol.21 (5), p.799-811
Main Authors: Tano, Marion, Paubel, Pascal, Ribault, Matthieu, Degrassat-Théas, Albane
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambulatory care
Biological products
Biosimilar Pharmaceuticals - therapeutic use
Drug stores
Etanercept - therapeutic use
Expenditures
Experiments
France
Generic drugs
Health Administration
Health Economics
Health facilities
Hospitals
Humans
Incentives
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Motivation
Original
Original Research Article
Patients
Pharmacoeconomics and Health Outcomes
Physicians
Prescription drugs
Prescriptions
Public finance
Public Health
Quality of Life Research
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Summary:Background Regarding the low penetration of biosimilars in the French market, in 2018, the government introduced two mutually exclusive financial incentives to increase biosimilar use. They redirect 20% (general case) or 30% (experimental case) of the price difference between the reference product and its biosimilar to hospitals for every biosimilar delivered in retail pharmacies from these hospital prescriptions. The experimental case specifically targets prescribing clinical units. Objectives Our study aimed to assess whether the new payment scheme closer to physicians (experimental case) improved etanercept biosimilar penetration after 25 months. Method We evaluated hospital prescriptions using IQVIA Xponent data. The monthly number of etanercept boxes delivered in retail pharmacies was linked to the corresponding hospital prescription. The impact of the experimental case on the etanercept biosimilar rate was assessed by a difference-in-difference method. Results Among the 39 hospitals studied in the experimental case compared with the 169 belonging to the general case, a similar growing trend of etanercept biosimilar use was observed before October 2018. At the start of the experiment, there was an acceleration of biosimilar penetration in the experimental group, until both groups reached a plateau. A significant double difference estimator of 9.72 percentage points in favor of the experiment confirmed this ( p  
ISSN:1175-5652
1179-1896
1179-1896
DOI:10.1007/s40258-023-00812-w