New feature “Biosimilar medicines” introduced in the Medicinal Product Register of Latvia

New feature “Biosimilar medicines” introduced in the Medicinal Product Register of Latvia

In accordance with the Cabinet of Ministers regulation regarding the procedure for prescribing recipes, the pharmacist or pharmacist’s assistant, upon dispensing biological medicines, shall indicate the serial number of medicines dispensed. However, this is only one of the conditions that healthcare professionals are required to comply with when prescribing biological or biosimilar medicines. Stricter pharmacovigilance measures have been applied to these medicines because special attention is being paid to the risk management for these medicines. The objective of pharmacovigilance is to identify changes in the safety profile of medicines as early as possible in the life-cycle of these medicines, to conduct research and implement risk minimisation measures.

In order to facilitate the availability of information regarding the potential biological origin of medicines and compliance with the aforementioned regulation to healthcare professionals, as well as to allow other users of the Medicinal Product Register of Latvia to better orient themselves among the medicinal products included in the register, the State Agency of Medicines introduces a new feature “biosimilar medicines” that will be visible beside the name of the active substance.

From now on the “biosimilar medicines” criteria will also be available as a search parameter in the advanced search form of the Medicinal Product Register of Latvia. Read more