PHARMACISTS are reporting growing confidence in biosimilar medications, a new report from the Generic Biosimilar Medicines Association (GBMA) reveals.
The 2020 Biosimilar Medicine Market Research Report found community pharmacists' experience with biosimilar medicines has increased significantly over the last four years, with 69% reporting that they had dispensed a biosimilar, compared with 39% in 2016.
The report also found that community pharmacists had "high levels of confidence in biosimilar medicines with 88% confidence in comparability [with biological medicines], 86% confidence in efficacy and 84% confidence in counselling a patient on a biosimilar medicine".
Of the major stakeholder groups surveyed as part of the research, community pharmacists were the most confident group when it came to substituting a biological medicine with a biosimilar, while hospital pharmacists expressed the least confidence in doing so.
However, both hospital and community pharmacists had the highest levels of confidence when it came to counselling patients about biosimilars.
GPs reported the lowest confidence in biosimilars, and also were the most likely to cite that insufficient information was a barrier to prescribing biosimilars.
The report found that all stakeholder groups felt there was a need to increase understanding of biosimilar medicines in the general community, particularly around general education and accessibility.
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