A British Columbia provincial policy that forced people with chronic illnesses such as Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis to switch to cheaper medications saved the province more than $730-million over five years, according to a new government report.
The B.C. government said Friday that the money freed up through its biosimilar switching plan allowed the province to expand public coverage of other drugs and devices, including Trikafta, a life-changing treatment for cystic fibrosis and continuous glucose monitors for people with diabetes.
Wonder what the patient perspective is?
As someone who’s seen first hand how different brands can work, I’m sure patients really appreciated being told they can’t use the more effective med.
The UK has a similar system. Critically though, doctors or pharmacists can override it.
I ended up cycling over the various generics of the medication I take, over a few months. I could definitely tell the difference between them. As for why I cycled. The system would try and automatically switch me off, unless it was either overridden, or I had already tried that medication. By cycling, I could find out if a generic worked the same (and so save the NHS money). It also stopped the system randomly choosing me to switch.
Overall, I think it’s not a bad idea, it just needs to be done VERY carefully, with override capabilities built-in, and acceptable to use.