• Welcome to Crohn's Forum, a support group for people with all forms of IBD. While this community is not a substitute for doctor's advice and we cannot treat or diagnose, we find being able to communicate with others who have IBD is invaluable as we navigate our struggles and celebrate our successes. We invite you to join us.

Cdn provincial government policy that would require a switch from biologic to biosimilar

Tesscorm

Moderator
Staff member
I received the following message from Crohns & Colitis Canada. I thought it was worth passing along to Canadian members. It's enough that insurance companies already have a say in medical decisions that affect us and our children; our government should not be further limiting our options!​

The link at the bottom should take you to Crohns & Colitis Canada site where you can participate in asking the government to not force a change from a biologic to a biosimilar when it is contrary to the decision made by the patient and their doctor.

Treatment decisions should be made by you and your doctor - not the government.

Provincial governments are considering or have implemented changes to healthcare policy that would require Canadians living with Crohn's or colitis who are currently doing well on a biologic to switch to a biosimilar. This means that if you are currently on a biologic, you may have to change your treatment plan - not because it is the best course of action for your unique IBD experience, but for non-medical reasons.

As British Columbia implements their non-medical switching policy, other governments will look to the patient response. We strongly disagree with policy changes at the expense of your health, so we launched a letter-writing campaign to amplify the voices of our community and let governments know that we do not support non-medical switching policy.

Your participation in this campaign is crucial!
The more noise we make, the more likely provincial governments will reconsider implementing a non-medical switch.

Take part in our letter-writing campaign to let your provincial government know how you feel! All you have to do is enter your name, email, and postal code - we'll take care of the rest.


 

Tesscorm

Moderator
Staff member
I've read of patients who found that the biosimilar med didn't control their disease as well as the biologic. But, as with all else, everyone will have a different experience.

But, like you said, I would just hate to rock the boat!

Do you know, if you switch to a biosimilar, can you go back to the original med if you find that your disease isn't controlled? Or would it be likely that you would develop antibodies?
 

Maya142

Moderator
Staff member
Do you know, if you switch to a biosimilar, can you go back to the original med if you find that your disease isn't controlled? Or would it be likely that you would develop antibodies?
Well, we were told if you've developed antibodies to the original drug, then a biosimilar is unlikely to work. So if you were to switch and due to that switch made antibodies to the original, then the biosimilar probably wouldn't work. But theoretically, you shouldn't make antibodies when switching because the two drugs are similar enough...unless there is some sort of long gap in between the two, for whatever reason.
 
They recently commenced this programme of switching in Ireland too. My son was switched June/July and so far its still working well, I even reached out to an IBD specialist i follow on twitter from another nearby city and he confirmed to me he'd switched 400 patients already between UK/Ireland
with no adverse. To me thats a big pool to see if something is going to change.

Thankfully for us all is still going fine on the BioSimilar, local hospital confirmed all new patients starting on BioSimilar and they had commenced working thru lists for switching the remainder
 
Top