what's a biosimilar, and why do you randomly get changed to it sometimes through the course of your treatment? who's winning w the advent of biosimilars--the hospital the clinic the patient the insurance company or the pharmacy company? ideally, it'll be everyone. they're basically the same exact active molecules that have the effect you're looking for on the cancer or body, but the pathway on developing them apparently is refined in a much less arduous and more streamlined fashion, thereby reducing costs of development. and this in turn has increased the number of americans who can ACCESS these meds by 20+ percent, and couldn't have gotten the original otherwise! who knew. which ideally means everyone wins. many thanks to the alliance for patient access (AfPA) for what in opinion is always fighting the good fight. i've learned a tremendous amount on how truly complicated the roots of the healthcare system are, from pharma to PBMs to brown vs bagging systems to universal pharmacies on thru and in relation to 340B and care vs not care based models for non hospitals. personally, im not overwhelmed ti figure it all out, but i'm glad someone is. I got choked up during my talk however on the shameful fallbacks on timely molecular testing on cancers, why we can't do them when a patient is inpatient and what the real cost to a person's quality of life can be because of these regulatory insurance based hold ups. next mission--do right but by the patients when it comes to molecular and precision medicine.. the alternative consequences are just too steep. #patientadvocacy #healthcare #allianceforpatientaccess #afpa #policy