{"id":5400,"date":"2018-05-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/15\/fda-approves-biosimilar-drug-to-treat-certain-types-of-anemia\/"},"modified":"2018-05-16T16:08:10","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T16:08:10","slug":"fda-approves-biosimilar-drug-to-treat-certain-types-of-anemia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/15\/fda-approves-biosimilar-drug-to-treat-certain-types-of-anemia\/","title":{"rendered":"FDA Approves &#8216;Biosimilar&#8217; Drug to Treat Certain Types of Anemia"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Retacrit is biosimilar to the drugs Epogen and Procrit<\/h3>\n<p><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p>TUESDAY, May 15, 2018 (HealthDay News) &#8212; Retacrit (epoetin alfa-epbx) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as the first &#8220;biosimilar&#8221; to the anemia drugs Epogen and Procrit.<\/p>\n<p>Epogen and Procrit are approved to treat anemia caused by chronic kidney disease, chemotherapy, or use of zidovudine in patients with HIV infection.<\/p>\n<p>Previously noted side effects of epoetin alfa include high blood pressure, joint pain, muscle spasm, fever, dizziness, blood vessel blockage, and respiratory infection, the FDA said. As with Epogen\/Procrit, Retacrit&#8217;s label includes a boxed warning about increased risk of death, heart problems, stroke, tumor growth, high blood pressure, seizures, and serious allergic reactions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is important for patients to have access to safe, effective, and affordable biological products and we are committed to facilitating the development and approval of biosimilar and interchangeable products,&#8221; Leah Christl, Ph.D., director of the Therapeutic Biologics and Biosimilars Staff in the FDA&#8217;s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. &#8220;Biosimilars can provide greater access to treatment options for patients, increasing competition and potentially lowering costs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Retacrit is produced by Hospira Inc., a unit of New York City-based Pfizer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/NewsEvents\/Newsroom\/PressAnnouncements\/ucm607703.htm\" target=\"_new\">More Information<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i><\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthday.com\/\" target=\"_new\">Health News<\/a> Copyright \u00a9 2018 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthday.com\/\" target=\"_new\">HealthDay<\/a>. All rights reserved.<\/i>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retacrit is biosimilar to the drugs Epogen and Procrit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-5400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medgoo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}