Boehringer to lay off salespeople as Humira biosimilar sales lag

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The logo of German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim is seen at its building in Shanghai, China February 1, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo - Boehringer Ingelheim on Thursday said it will lay off some of its salesforce due to poor U.S. sales of its biosimilar version of AbbVie’s blockbuster arthritis treatment Humira.

That choice has led to less uptake of biosimilar versions of Humira in the United States, including Boehringer's Cyltezo, it said. The company, which has 53,000 employees worldwide, did not provide details on how many people would be laid off.Boehringer launched Cyltezo last July but has only managed to sell 1,487 prescriptions in total since then, according to IQVIA data. Almost 2.8 million Humira prescriptions have been written during the same period.

Unlike easy to manufacture pills that can be copied and sold as generics at a huge discount once patents lapse, complex biologic medicines made from living cells cannot be exactly duplicated and so are known as biosimilars. The introduction of biosimilars was supposed to help cut the price of expensive biotech medicines that go off patent, if not by as much as generics.

Boehringer's Humira biosimilar was the first to be designated interchangeable by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, meaning it can be substituted for the original without consulting the prescriber.)'s Optum Rx and Cigna’s Express Scripts, two of the largest U.S. PBMs, chose to include Cyltezo on their insurance reimbursement lists last year alongside Humira, Hyrimoz and Amjevita.

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