A Feb. 4 hearing of the U.S. Subcommittee on Health delved into the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act legislation.
The act granted approval to biological products that had been found to be biosimilar or interchangeable with products already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Additional legislation, the Biosimilar User Fee Act, was passed in 2012. As biosimilar products came closer to being approved by the FDA, rules and guidelines for approval of reimbursement for those products were put in place by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The first biosimilar product received FDA approval in March 2015.
The U.S. Subcommittee on Health is chaired by Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA).
