Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Biobusiness Briefs
  • Published:

Market watch

Strategies for biosimilars in emerging markets

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 16, pages 520–521 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Biologic drugs remain inaccessible to most patients in emerging markets. Biosimilars represent a compelling proposition for patient affordability and access, and attractive value for governments in many of these countries. However, quality concerns, technology hurdles, lack of robust regulatory frameworks, and development timelines and costs are key hurdles for biosimilars in emerging markets. This article proposes a framework that can help companies to formulate strategies to capture the growing opportunity for biologics in these markets.

The commercial opportunity was assessed through IMS Health sales data for branded innovator biologics (monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and other complex biologics) in 2014 - a year by which there had been very few (if any) launches of biosimilar versions of the innovator products in these emerging markets. Brazil (with sales of leading branded innovator biologics of ~US$1.5 billion in 2014), has the highest commercial potential for mAbs and other complex biologics, largely driven by government reimbursement. Russia and Mexico (which both had sales of >$0.4 billion) also have high commercial potential owing to government reimbursement. By contrast, China has high commercial potential (with sales of ~$0.5 billion), despite low government reimbursement, driven largely by a prosperous middle class seeking high-quality health care. Turkey, South Korea, India and Saudia Arabia all had sales of <$0.4 billion (India and Saudi Arabia had sales of <$50 million) and were classified as having low commercial potential.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Classification of strategies for biosimilars in emerging markets.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 101 Cairnhill Circle, 229818, Singapore

    Ajay Gautam

Authors
  1. Ajay Gautam
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ajay Gautam.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Related links

DATABASES

S1 (box)

PowerPoint slides

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (box)

Data and analysis (PDF 555 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gautam, A. Strategies for biosimilars in emerging markets. Nat Rev Drug Discov 16, 520–521 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.113

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.113

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing: Translational Research

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Translational Research newsletter — top stories in biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma.

Get what matters in translational research, free to your inbox weekly. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Translational Research