We had an important conversation for patients at an event hosted by The Hill, featuring Viatris CEO Michael Goettler. It focuses on how we best address what we’ve learned through the pandemic: the socioeconomic factors that influence health, the disparities in access that persist, and the need to re-examine traditional models of care.
Viatris was born during COVID - launching a year ago this week - so Michael is particularly well-suited to address these themes. Patients are our purpose. Everything we do, we do for them. Our mission is only realized when our medicines can be accessed by all patients, regardless of geography or circumstance. COVID has added a sense of urgency to our mission, with an even more profound understanding of disparities in access and gaps in care.
This event was particularly timely given the debate occurring on Capitol Hill. It’s all about ensuring patient access to medicine.
A great place to start would be with some of the costliest and most highly sought-after medicines today: biologics. Biosimilar medicines are approved by regulatory authorities as highly similar to the originally approved brand biologics with no clinically meaningful differences in safety or efficacy. At Viatris, we believe that supporting a robust, competitive biosimilars market is essential to the future of access to medicines.
The good news is, Congress is aware and there are multiple bills out there that aim to provide more patients with access to biosimilars. We are confident that patient access to biosimilars will remain a priority as congressional deliberations proceed.