Objective: To investigate UK healthcare professionals' perceptions and perspectives towards biosimilar infliximab, etanercept and insulin glargine and the potential barriers and facilitators to their prescribing.
Design: A cross-sectional qualitative study design was used.
Setting: Five hospitals within the West Midlands area in UK.
Interventions: 30 min face-to-face, semistructured interviews of healthcare professionals.
Participants: 22 healthcare professionals (consultants, nurses and pharmacists) participated in the semistructured interviews.
Outcomes: Participants' opinion and attitudes about biosimilars and the barriers and facilitators to the prescribing of infliximab, etanercept and insulin glargine biosimilars in gastroenterology, rheumatology and diabetology specialties.
Results: This study showed that UK healthcare professionals had good knowledge of biosimilars and were content to initiate them. Healthcare professionals disagreed with biosimilar auto-substitution at pharmacy level and multiple switching. Subtle differences among healthcare professionals were identified in the acceptance of switching stable patients, indication extrapolation and cost savings sharing.
Conclusion: Safety and efficacy concerns, patients' opinion and how cost savings were shared were the identified barriers to considering prescribing biosimilars. Real-life data and financial incentives were the suggested facilitators to increase biosimilar utilisation.
Keywords: gastroenterology; health policy; qualitative research; rheumatology.
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