Truxima, a blood cancer treatment launched by South Korea’s leading biosimilar company Celltrion Inc., is now available in 18 European countries, an expansion achieved in just a year after the biosimilar first hit the continent in April last year.

Celltrion Healthcare Co., marketing and distribution subsidiary of Celltrion, said on Monday that it has expanded sales of Truxima to 18 countries in Europe including Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, after launching the biosimilar in the United Kingdom in April, last year. Truxima is the copycat version of Rituxan, a treatment for a type of blood cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma and autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. The original drug MabThera has been developed by Biogen Idec Inc. and is being marketed by Roche as Rituxan overseas.

An unnamed official from Celltrion Healthcare said that Truxima has rapidly penetrated the market with abundant clinical test data to account for 58 percent of the original drug market in the Netherlands and 43 percent in the United Kingdom. The biosimilar company plans to expand its distribution network to all over Europe by the end of this year.

By Shin Chan-ok and Lee Eun-joo

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