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Design and Analysis of Biosimilar Switching Studies

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Abstract

Under the US Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCI), the development of biosimilar (test) products provides affordable alternatives to innovative biological (reference) products for the general patient population. However, in practice, as the number of biosimilar products available on the market increases, whether these biosimilars can be used interchangeably is a concern. Thus, using switching studies to evaluate the risk of reduced efficacy and increased safety concerns with and without switch(es) in the development of biosimilar products is of interest. For this purpose, the US FDA, in its recent draft guidance on interchangeability, suggested using a 2 × 2 crossover design (RT, RR) to evaluate a single switch and (RTR, RRR) and (RTRT, RRRR) to evaluate multiple switches. In this article, we examine the statistical properties, analyses, and sample size requirements of these switching study designs. We also investigate the relative efficiencies of these switching designs compared with the complete  n-of-1 trial design.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA

    Shein-Chung Chow

  2. Celltrion, Inc, Incheon, Republic of Korea

    Sang Joon Lee

Authors
  1. Shein-Chung Chow
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  2. Sang Joon Lee
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Correspondence to Shein-Chung Chow.

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No funding was received for the preparation of this research article.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Shein-Chung Chow and Dr. Sang Joon Lee have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.

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Chow, SC., Lee, S.J. Design and Analysis of Biosimilar Switching Studies. Pharm Med 33, 379–388 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-019-00296-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-019-00296-x

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