Biosimilars Canada Announces Board Chair And Vice-Chair For 2025

Biosimilars Canada is pleased to announce the unanimous election of Mike Casia, President and Managing Director of Organon Canada, as Chair of Biosimilars Canada for 2025.

Mike Woolcock, Senior Vice President of Biosimilars and Specialty Products with Apotex, was unanimously elected by the Board to the Vice-Chair position.

Mr. Casia said that the industry’s focus remains on building a predictable and stable biosimilars market in Canada, and working with governments and the Competition Bureau to address evergreening and other strategies from certain originators that have the impact to delaying and reducing biologic drug competition.

“Competition from biosimilars helps to lower drug costs for Canadians, and provides increased treatment options for clinicians and patients. It also is a key driver for drug innovation. Everyone loses when competition is unjustly curtailed,” said Mr. Casia. “The future growth and sustainability of the biosimilars industry in Canada remains at risk as actions of some originators to extend market monopolies become more sophisticated and remain unaddressed.”

Mr. Casia also noted that Biosimilars Canada launched the #SaveBigWithBiosimilars campaign last November, an educational campaign to help companies understand the benefits of adopting biosimilar switching policies for their employer-sponsored drug benefit plans. The campaign will continue in 2025 in an effort increase the use of biosimilars in the private market.

Mr. Woolcock added that increased efficiency in Health Canada’s regulatory requirements and submission reviews is also needed to support a robust pipeline of new biosimilars for Canadian patients, clinicians and payers.^[1]

“Comparative clinical studies are costly for manufacturers to conduct, lack scientific validity and offer no new information to regulators or healthcare providers,” noted Mr. Woolcock. “The elimination of unnecessary clinical requirements by Health Canada and other regulatory authorities is urgently needed today to ensure that there is robust cost-saving competition for biologic drugs in the future.”

Mike Casia was appointed President and Managing Director to launch the Canadian operations of Organon in June 2021. Before assuming his current leadership position at Organon Canada in 2021, Mr. Casia played a pivotal role in Organon’s creation during its spin-off from Merck. As the Chief of Staff for Organon’s Global CEO, he contributed to the creation of the global organization. Mike has over two decades of experience across a variety of roles within the life science sector, including positions in the United States, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, and France. Mr. Casia holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from McGill University.

Mike Woolcock has been a member of Apotex for more than 10 years. Mr. Woolcock has more than 30 years of experience in managing the commercialization of pharmaceutical and biotech products. He has worked in small and large pharmaceutical companies as well as start-up and large biotechnology companies. Prior to joining Apotex, Mr. Woolcock held sales, marketing and R&D positions with Procter & Gamble and biotech companies Cortech and Amgen. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Genetics from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.

About Biosimilars Canada
Biosimilars Canada is a national association representing the biosimilar medicines industry in Canada. Our member companies are at the forefront of the global development and marketing of biosimilar medicines. Biosimilars Canada provides leadership in educating Canadian stakeholders about the safety and efficacy of biosimilar medicines, and advocates for policies that support their timely approval, reimbursement, market acceptance and expanded use. Biosimilars Canada is a division of the Canadian Generic Pharmaceutical Association. Visit us at www.biosimilarscanada.ca.

About Biosimilar Medicines
A biosimilar biologic drug, or biosimilar, is a drug demonstrated to be highly similar to a biologic drug that was already authorized for sale. Health Canada evaluates all the information provided to confirm that the biosimilar and the reference biologic drug are similar and that there are no clinically meaningful differences in safety and efficacy between them. Health Canada’s rigorous standards for authorization mean that you can have the same confidence in the quality, safety and efficacy of a biosimilar as any other biologic drug. Additional information about biosimilar medicines can be found in Health Canada’s fact sheet Biosimilar biologic drugs in Canada.

^[1] Position Statement on Streamlined Development, International Generic and Biosimilar medicines Association (IGBA), April 2024.