Approval of the first biosimilar antibodies in Europe

In a defining moment for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the biopharmaceutical industry, on June 27, 2013 EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use adopted a positive opinion for two biosimilar infliximab products (Celltrion’s Remsima® and Hospira’s Inflectra®), and recommended that they be approved for marketing in the European Union (EU). The European Commission’s decision on an application is typically issued 67 d after an opinion is provided; thus, decisions are expected in early September 2013. If approved, the products will comprise the first biosimilar antibody made available to patients in a highly regulated market, although launch may be delayed due to an extension of the reference product’s (Remicade®) patent in the EU.     

Marketing approval of mogamulizumab

Therapeutic properties of antibodies strongly depend on the composition of their glycans. Most of the currently approved antibodies are produced in mammalian cell lines, which yield mixtures of different glycoforms that are close to those of humans, but not fully identical. Glyco-engineering is being developed as a method to control the composition of carbohydrates and to enhance the pharmacological properties of mAbs. The recent approval in Japan of mogamulizumab (POTELIGEO^®), the first glyco-engineered antibody to reach the market, is a landmark in the field of therapeutic antibodies. Mogamulizumab is a humanized mAb derived from Kyowa Hakko Kirin’s POTELLIGENT^® technology, which produces antibodies with enhanced antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) activity. The approval was granted April 30, 2012 by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare for patients with relapsed or refractory CCR4-positive adult T-cell leukemia-lymphoma.     

Biosimilars entering the clinic without animal studies

The concept of biosimilars has spread from Europe to other regions throughout the world, and many regions have drafted regulatory guidelines for their development. Recently, a paradigm shift in regulatory thinking on the non-clinical development of biosimilars has emerged in Europe: In vivo testing should follow a step-wise approach rather than being performed by default. To not require animal testing at all in some instances can well be seen as a revolutionary, but science-based, step. Here, we describe the internal discussions that led to this paradigm shift. The mainstay for the establishment of biosimilarity is the pharmaceutical comparability based on extensive physicochemical and biological characterization. Pharmacodynamic comparability can be evaluated in in vitro assays, whereas pharmacokinetic comparability is best evaluated in clinical studies. It is considered highly unlikely that new safety issues would arise when comparability has been demonstrated based on physicochemical and in vitro comparative studies.