News & Insights
Archimedes Announces BiosimilarsFirstTM, an Industry Leading Program to Drive Biosimilar Adoption in 2024
BRENTWOOD, TN, January 10, 2024 – Archimedes, a recognized leader in specialty drug management solutions, announced BiosimilarsFirstTM, a program, which excludes Humira from the formulary in favor of low cost, low WAC biosimilars. BiosimilarsFirst is projected to drive industry-leading adoption of biosimilars for autoimmune diseases, providing plan sponsor savings of 65% plus and more affordable treatment options for patients.
The FDA approved nine biosimilars for Humira in 2023, which includes both high WAC versions (priced ~5% lower than Humira) and low WAC versions (priced ~55%+ lower than Humira). Major PBMs are making the brand and high cost, high WAC biosimilars easily available to patients while limiting promotion of or restricting access to the lower cost biosimilars, a move that keeps plan and patient costs high and preserves the PBM’s existing revenue streams. Archimedes’ BiosimilarsFirst program stands in direct contrast to the PBM market’s approach by preferring low cost biosimilars and excluding both brand and high cost biosimilars.
“The larger PBMs in the market derive higher profits on Humira and high WAC biosimilars through rebate keep and fulfillment at PBM-owned pharmacies. With these financial conflicts in place, we expect the market will see substantial utilization of Humira and high WAC biosimilars in 2024,” said Dr. Brenda Motheral PhD, CEO and Co-Founder of Archimedes. “Our aligned business model gives Archimedes the freedom to exclude Humira, making our clients optimally positioned to capture greater savings than other plan sponsors while increasing patient affordability.”
Archimedes has proven expertise in working with members and physicians to move to biosimilars for their Fortune 500 and smaller employer clients. As evidence to this, Archimedes’ Biosimilar Fill RateTM was 94% in 2023 for drugs that had a biosimilar available throughout all of 2023. As part of their commitment to transparency, Archimedes will be publishing their Biosimilar Fill RateTM on their website and through social media throughout 2024, allowing the market to track the success of the BiosimilarsFirst program.
About Archimedes
Archimedes is the industry leader in specialty drug management solutions. Founded with the goal of transforming the PBM industry to provide the necessary ingredients for the sustainability of the prescription drug benefit – alignment, value and transparency – Archimedes achieves superior results for clients by eliminating tightly held PBM conflicts of interest including drug spread, rebate retention and pharmacy ownership and delivering the most rigorous clinical management at the lowest net cost.
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