Benefits of Biosimilar Infliximab in the Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Running head: RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
Rheumatoid Arthritis
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Author Note

1RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS
Introduction
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a progressive, chronic disease that is associated with the
degeneration of the joints of the body if the condition is kept untreated for a long time. With
growing technology, the techniques of treatment of RA has also progressed a lot. Nowadays, the
treatment of RA is focusing on to be cost-effective and along with this the treatment procedure
must be very effective in reducing the burden of the disease as well. There are various treatment
for the RA and among them using of biosimilar in the treatment RA has been proven to be very
effective (Mahajan & Mikuls, 2018). In this essay, the benefits of this new treatment process of
RA has been highlighted in a brief manner.
Review of Literature
The introduction of biosimilar agents in the treatment of RA has become very effective in
recent time as it is cost effective while comparing with the disease modifying antirheumatic
drugs (DMARDs). Annual cost of DMARDs are restricting the patients to get access of the drugs
easily and it is assumed that almost US$ 10000 to US$ 25000 is required for using DMARDs
treatment in RA. Various studies showed the benefits of using biosimilar in the treatment of RA.
One of the most common biosimilar treatment is biosimilar of Infliximab that is CT-P13.
According to the study of Nikiphorou et al. (2015), showed the effectiveness of CT-P13 in the
treatment of RA. In this study it was observed that, 39 patients participated in this study and they
were already using methotrexate for almost 3 months – 13 years. After the treatment with CP-
P13. According to the patient outcomes of this study, it was observed that, the biosimilar
treatment has not produced any problems like fatigue that is quite common in the DMARDs
treatment and the p value of p< 0.08 showed significant differences among the two treatment
process. The real life settings was used in this study and it was one of the strengths of this study.