Big Pharma tries to short-circuit France's move toward biosimilar substitution

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Late last year, French legislators quietly slipped a measure into the country's 2014 budget legislation that would allow pharmacists to substitute inexpensive biosimilar drugs for pricier biotech brands. While not a full-out assault on branded biologics, it would make France the first European country to substitute the cheaper drugs, and the pharma industry is doing everything it can to derail that move before France's Administrative Supreme Court decrees it into effect.