Background: The French social insurance regularly provides data accessible in open access regarding the consumption and expenses related to healthcare. One of the raw data set available, Open Medic, show specific interest to study drug consumptions in France. It appeared interesting to investigate how Open Medic data can be used to better understand biosimilar market penetration in France. The example of anti-TNF was chosen (ATC class L04AB).
Objectives: This work aimed to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the possible exploitation of open data from the French healthcare insurance through a concrete example describing the market penetration and related expenses of anti-TNFs biosimilars in France.
Methods: This work was based on the exploitation and reprocessing of data from Open Medic 2014 to 2021 datasets, which include data on annual drug expenditures (reimbursed amounts - REM - and reimbursable amounts - BSE) as well as the number of boxes dispensed, according to descriptive elements on beneficiaries (age group, gender, region of residence) and information on the prescriber's specialty among drugs delivered in community pharmacies (outside hospital).
Results: The overall number of patients who have received a delivery of anti-TNF in France in community pharmacies has increased from 87,606 in 2014 up to 148,771 in 2021. This represented a total of 1,442,654 boxes of anti-TNF sold, and a total of 840 million of euros reimbursed by the French social insurance in 2021. Among patients receiving anti-TNF, the proportion of women was slightly higher than men with 53.7% of patients, and a quarter of the patients are 60 years old or older. The penetration rate, in terms of number of boxes sold, has increased from 3.5% of biosimilars in 2018, 12.8% in 2019, 22.1% in 2020 and 27.5% in 2021. Expenses related to anti-TNF biosimilars increased from 8 M€ in 2017 up to 195 M€ in 2021, representing 23.2% of the total expenses of anti-TNF in 2021. Disparities have been observed across regions regarding the repartition of anti-TNF expenses between biosimilars and original drug. In particular, the expenses related to biosimilars represent 25.6% in the Paris region (Ile de France), whereas it represents 19,8% in the south/west of France (Occitanie).
Conclusions: This study shows firstly that the use of anti-TNF biosimilars has strongly increased every year in France since their launch, representing in 2021 up to 27% of the boxes of anti-TNF delivered in community pharmacies. This work also highlights the strong interest that can have the reuse of open data provided by the French national social insurance on drug consumption and expenditures in France.
