Boehringer puts a target on Humira, says pushing it off formularies is necessary

For biosim­i­lars to win, Ab­b­Vie has to lose, ac­cord­ing to Boehringer In­gel­heim.

The Ger­man drug­mak­er on Wednes­day said that its goal of get­ting more up­take for Hu­mi­ra biosim­i­lars will re­quire push­ing Ab­b­Vie’s drug off of PBM for­mu­la­ries. Boehringer’s high-con­cen­tra­tion, cit­rate-free for­mu­la­tion of its Hu­mi­ra biosim­i­lar Cyl­te­zo won FDA ap­proval on Wednes­day.

The com­pa­ny’s for­mu­la­ry push fol­lows a sig­nif­i­cant uptick in mar­ket pen­e­tra­tion by San­doz’s Hu­mi­ra biosim­i­lar, thanks to a new part­ner­ship with CVS Health that cut Ab­b­Vie’s Hu­mi­ra from its spot on ma­jor na­tion­al for­mu­la­ries. Boehringer is now look­ing to make a sim­i­lar move, and it al­ready has a re­la­tion­ship with Cigna’s Ever­north to re­duce out-of-pock­et costs with its biosim­i­lar.

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