Celltrion's Remsima logs $55 million sales in US

Sales of biosimilar Remsima by South Korean bio-pharmaceutical firm Celltrion Inc. topped $55 million in the United States during the first quarter of this year, industry data here showed Wednesday.

Sources familiar with the matter said sales of the drug jumped by 224 percent from a year earlier in the January-March period.

Remsima is an identical copy of Janssen Biotech, Inc.'s Remicade and is effective in treating various diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to Crohn's disease. In the U.S. market, Remsima went on sale in November 2016 under the name Inflectra, produced by Pfizer Inc.

The US sales of Remsima only came to $4 million in 2016 but soon jumped to $118 million the following year, they said.

Remsima was the second biosimilar made by Celltrion to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Biosimilars are officially approved copycat medicines developed after patents for the original drugs expire. (Yonhap)