The word biosimilar does not convey any nuance in this context, IMO. We cannot say with assurance whether M178 would ever have been approvable as a substitutable FoB, but NVS may have concluded that the possibility was remote.
If the branded counterpart of M178 had been a bona fide blockbuster, it might still have been worth NVS/MNTA’s time and money to develop a non-substitutable FoB. However, we can surmise that the branded counterpart of M178 is not a blockbuster from the small size ($15M) of the milestone payments attributable to M178 in NVS/MNTA’s 2006 collaboration.
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