Health Stories Project—Insights, a new healthcare market intelligence company dedicated to magnifying the patient voice to influence decision making and support movement toward patient-centricity, has announced the launch of its Insights Reports with the publication of a report titled "Biosimilars: Patient Understanding and Attitudes." The research showed that 81% of patients believe biosimilars and biologics should require the same type and level of testing, and the response is even higher among women (83%) and consumers 55 and older (92%). Among patients not using biologics, more than half said they were interested in learning more about biosimilars.

“As biosimilars are poised for expanded adoption, we knew the time was right to ask autoimmune patients who are either already taking biologics or have conditions that could result in treatment with biologics about their understanding of, concerns about and willingness to take biosimilars,” said Jo Anne Jensen, vice president of Health Stories Project—Insights. “Our findings were very revealing, leading us to conduct two follow-up forums with both biologic-experienced and biologic-naive patients. These additional in-depth discussions explored patient feelings and the factors that influence their treatment.”

This report is based on the findings of a September-October 2016 survey and two discussion forums exploring the views of 300 patients with autoimmune conditions to assess their awareness of and attitudes toward biosimilars. Participants included a wide range of conditions, treatment profiles, ages, genders and geographies. Topics addressed include:

• Impact of patient condition on understanding of biosimilars
• Awareness and understanding of biologics and biosimilars
• Ability to differentiate between biologics and biosimilars
• Testing of biologics and biosimilars
• Factors that affect treatment choices
• Trusted sources of information
• Reactions to physician switching to a biosimilar
• Reactions to pharmacy substitution of a biosimilar product

Health Stories Project—Insights is a new healthcare market intelligence company dedicated to capturing, measuring, analyzing and sharing the patient perspective. The company gathers information compliantly and privately through both custom and syndicated research projects, including online surveys, video interviews and virtual focus groups. It publishes reports, white papers and infographics to deliver research findings. Based in Seattle, Health Stories Project—Insights is part of the Health Perspectives Group of companies.

“As our newest Health Perspectives Group division, Health Stories Project—Insights fills a unique need within the biopharmaceutical and healthcare industries,” said Cheryl Lubbert, President and CEO of Health Perspectives Group. “Using industry best practices and analysis, Health Stories Project—Insights gives patients opportunities to share their personal health stories and magnifies their voices to influence industry decision-making and support the shift toward patient-centricity.”