Florida Biosimilars Bill seeks to notify patients and doctors of changes to prescriptions

The US State of Florida Senate Committee on Health Policy has passed Senate Bill (SB) 732. Under this proposed legislation, Florida would permit automatic substitution of biosimilar medicines that the Food and Drug Administration has deemed interchangeable and put in place key measures to help doctors maintain accurate records of what medicine their patient received. Unlike the European Union, the USA still does not have nation-wide legislation on biosimilars, although the FDA is currently working on this.

Just last month, new legislation in the US state of Virginia was signed into law by Governor Bob McDonnell. This is designed to address the regulatory issues related to the interchangeability of biological medicines but forbids pharmacists from dispensing a biosimilar substitution to a brand-name biologic drug if the prescribing physician specifies the prescription must be dispensed as written or if a patient wants the branded drug (The Pharma Letter March 25).

Welcomed by biotech industry