The cost-saving benefits of biosimilars

Hospital Pharmacy Europe winter issue is now available in print and online.

This issue covers how secondary care providers can be encouraged to make efficient use of high-cost drugs by using biosimilars, as it becomes increasingly difficult to deliver cost effective changes in clinical practice especially when it comes to negotiating drug costs. Professor Fraser Cummings and Violeta Razanskaite discuss their experience of implementing a managed switching programme for patients on Remicade®to biosimilar infliximab at the University Hospital Southampton.

By 2018 the Falsified Medicines Directive (2011/62/EU) must be implemented across every hospital pharmacy in the European Union. In this issue we take an in-depth look at the practical implications this will have on hospital pharmacists across Europe in preparation for this.

The role of the pharmacist is expanding, and we highlight a few examples of this in this issue. We take a look at the role of the pharmacist in the care home, as Helen Whiteside talks about medicines management for vulnerable elderly people. In addition, we centre on research by a group from Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust into hospital pharmacists’ contributions to clinical care and the ways in which this is ever-changing and growing. Lastly, we highlight how the pharmacist can be involved in the emergency department, with a critical role in prescribing, as seen by a clinical team from Spain.

David Hellens from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge covers the latest treatments in the pharmacological management of Alzheimer’s disease in the UK. He also addresses the scale of the financial cost of dementia and the best practice evidence available to all healthcare professionals to improve patient outcomes.

This issue includes a summation of some of the excellent talks from HPE LIVE 2015 and features a call for papers for HPE LIVE 2016, which takes place on 10 November 2016, in London for the first time. We are looking for new and innovative research in various areas of pharmacy to showcase at HPE LIVE 2016.