The Spanish Patient Forum (FEP) and the Spanish Association of Biosimilars (Biosim) have signed a Collaboration Framework Agreement establishing a permanent cooperation model, aimed at improving information on biosimilar medicines aimed at patients. This agreement derives from the recent incorporation of the Spanish Patient Forum to the Biosim Advisory Council, an area in which various professionals and scientific and health associations also collaborate with the Association to improve the knowledge and implementation of biosimilar medicines in healthcare decisions. for the benefit of the patient.

The agreement has been signed by Andoni Lorenzo, president of the FEP, and by Joaquín Rodrigo, president of Biosim. The FEP was already part of the Biosim Advisory Council, so this agreement consolidates and consolidates the collaboration between both organizations, and establishes a relationship model aimed at generating specific actions for Spanish patients.

First guide on biosimilar medicines for patients.

Specifically, the Framework Agreement establishes as the first action collaboration in the drafting and dissemination of the first Guide to Biosimilar Medicines for Patients, a pioneer with these characteristics in Europe, and which is expected to be developed with the aim of providing daily knowledge of pharmacological principles. and regulation of biosimilar medicines. The guide will be published with accessible formats and terminologies for non-experts, but safeguarding the quality and appropriateness of its contents.

The guide will have an eminently didactic orientation, and it is intended to serve to improve the levels of information of patients in relation to biosimilar medicines. For both the FEP and Biosim, the role of the informed patient is essential in improving their levels of responsibility regarding clinical decisions, and is a factor that contributes decisively to improving the quality and efficiency of pharmaceutical care.

The guide for patients - which is expected to be finished by the end of this year - continues an editorial series started with the Guide to Biosimilar Medicines for Physicians, which was prepared by Biosim in collaboration with the Collegiate Medical Organization, and recently presented.

With this agreement, Biosim intends to specify a set of information actions aimed at the final beneficiaries of the therapies, which will also be carried out through successive agreements with other patient associations and platforms.

About biosimilar medicines.

A biosimilar is a biological medicine that is equivalent in quality, efficacy and safety to an original biological medicine, called a reference product. The dosage and route of administration must be the same, and the biosimilar is authorized for all or some of the indications approved for the reference biologic. Biosimilars allow a greater number of patients to access biological treatments due to the reduction in cost compared to the original product, and contribute both to the sustainability of the system and to improved patient access to innovative treatments. Currently, the European Union has authorized the marketing of more than twenty of these medicines, and it is expected that in the coming years a growing number of approved products and indications will be available.

On FSpanish Gold of Patients.

The FEP was born at the end of 2004 under the impulse of Dr. Albert Jovell and the Barcelona Declaration, the first decalogue of patients' rights drawn up in Spain by 50 national patient and voluntary organizations. The purpose of the FEP has been to establish an inter-associative platform capable of bringing together the representation of patients from the expert experience of the disease and its daily impact on the life of the patient and their family and social context. Over time, thanks to the efforts of all its members, it has become a reference body at the national, regional, European and international levels. The basic objective of the Spanish Patient Forum is to promote the rights of patients according to the gradual adaptation of public and institutional policies to the needs, values, expectations, and priorities of patients, regardless of the pathology suffered.