ArticleArthritis care & research2026
Did a Non-Medical Biosimilar Switching Policy Cause an Increase in Non-Biologic/Biosimilar Health Care Resource Utilization or Cost in Patients With Inflammatory Arthritis?
Article in Arthritis care & research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the impact of a series of policies that mandated switching patients with inflammatory arthritis (IA) from an originator biologic to a biosimilar in British Columbia, Canada, on health care resource use and cost.
methodsThe health data of patients with IA were obtained from five linked administrative databases held by Population Data BC from January 2013 to December 2022. Our analysis focused on trends in monthly average use and costs of four care resources: physician services, hospital services, emergency department visits, and concomitant drug use. Using interrupted time series analysis, we evaluated the impact of switching policies targeting (1) infliximab or etanercept and (2) adalimumab on total health care costs, excluding biologic and biosimilar costs.
resultsWe included 3,150 patients in the study. Hospital and physician services accounted for the majority of the total care cost for patients with IA. We found no evidence of any increases in physician services, hospital services, emergency department visits, or concomitant drug use after either nonmedical switch policy. We also found no significant change in level and trend in total health care costs for both policies: infliximab or etanercept (level -$40, 95% confidence interval [CI] -$99 to $19; trend $5.42, 95% CI -$0.62 to $11.46) and adalimumab (level -$34, 95% CI -$139 to $70; trend -$8.97, -$17.94 to $0.00).
conclusionNonmedical biosimilar switching policies did not lead to increases in other health care service use and costs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.