BioSimilars Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

What is a BioSimilar?

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Biosimilar. Very good question. What is a biosimilar? Well, biosimilar involves proteins that are used for health purposes. Proteins that will treat disease, proteins and other very large, large molecules. Everybody knows what wine is, and you know everybody knows what Bordeaux wine is. It’s made in France, it’s expensive. It’s $200.00 a bottle. Of, of course, other vintners around the world like to knock off Bordeaux wines. And so in California or in Chili, they try to make their wines to taste like Bordeaux wine. That’s what a biosimilar is. Somebody else tries to make a protein, a biological agent for treating disease that is similar to the protein or the product that is on the market to treat a particular disease. So, for example, insulin is a biological, and although insulin is very old, insulin is something that people could try to duplicate.

More recent examples are monoclonal antibodies. Herceptin. Everybody’s heard about Herceptin for treatment of breast cancer, and it’s made by Genentech. So the generic companies would like to make a very similar product. And it’s like making wine. It’s difficult, but it’s doable.

Minneapolis patent attorney Jim Nelson of Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner defines a BioSimilar.

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