Abstracts by keywords: EPO
In recent years, the use of biotechnologically produced drugs has increased significantly. These active ingredients, which are usually produced through the use of bacteria or cell cultures, are used in a variety of indication areas. Biotechnologically produced active ingredients are used particularly in the treatment of serious diseases such as anemia in kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis and other systemic diseases as well as various cancers (Roger 2006). One way to save costs in the area of biologicals is to increase the use of so-called “biosimilars”, which can be developed by other manufacturers and brought onto the market after the patent protection of the biological has expired. As part of a model calculation, it was examined how high these expected savings could be by substituting the reference biologicals with biosimilars using the example of selected European countries between 2007 and 2020.