Philadelphia Medicine Summer 2021 - 4

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Letter from the president
T
Stephen R. Permut,
MD, JD, and
President, PCMS
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include your name,
town, and phone number.
he COVID-19 pandemic
has not gone away, at least
for the time being.
That " time being " will most likely stretch
into next year.
In this issue of Philadelphia Medicine,
contributing writer Michael C. Upton points
out this issue that, for practices, some of the
changes to health care appointment scheduling,
welcoming procedures and customer relations
brought on by social distancing and other
safety precautions implemented during the
pandemic may be here to stay.
In addition, Upton spoke with two
Philadelphia physicians who weigh in on what
the new normal looks like for their practices
now and going forward.
In his article on biosimilars, which are
medications that are similar versions of widelyprescribed
biologic therapies, contributing
writer David A. Kostival notes that unlike
normally manufactured, chemical drugs as
a dominant source of treatment, biologic
therapies, or biologics, are products produced
from living organisms, or at least contain
components of living organisms. These
drugs were developed to combat specific
diseases such as cancers, Crohn's disease or
rheumatoid arthritis. Biologics have been used
successfully to treat many life-threatening
and chronic diseases.
There is, however, a potentially lower-cost
EDITORIAL BOARD
Corina Graziani, MD
Andy Andrews, Editor
Susan Robbins, MD, MPH, FAAP
Paul D. Siegel, MD
option that has been emerging in the market
over the last decade, known as a biosimilar
drug. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
states that through the Biologics Price
Competition and Innovation Act of 2009,
Congress approved an abbreviated licensure
pathway for biological products that are shown
to be interchangeable, or " biosimilar, " with
an FDA-approved biological product. The
whole idea of a biosimilar is that it is meant
to control biologic prices after a biologic's
patent expires.
4 Philadelphia Medicine : Summer 2021
John Kelton, medical director, biosimilars,
at Pfizer, explains that biosimilars have the
potential ability to treat the same medical
conditions as biologics and be equally effective.
Biosimilars are, in fact, biologic drugs.
" Biological products include a wide range
of products such as vaccines, blood and blood
components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene
therapy, tissues and recombinant therapeutic
proteins, " Kelton says.
Dr. Joanna J. Parga-Belinkie, MD, FAAP,
is attending neonatologist at the hospital
of the University of Pennsylvania and the
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
In her column this issue - a feature on
newborn care in a post-pandemic world - the
pandemic, she writes, is seemingly going to
simmer and burn out by summer. But endemic
changes in infant care are here to stay.
What do pediatricians need to think
about when counseling parents about family
planning and delivery in the immediate
post-pandemic age?
She offers a rundown of a few changes,
along with some evidenced-based sources for
families to reference as the post-pandemic
world slowly reopens.
In Philadelphia Medicine Editor Andy
Andrews's story on my new role as PCMS
president, one of our plans is to survey
PCMS membership to determine ways that
organized medicine can meet the needs of
physicians across the spectrum. This can
involve some collaboration with existing
medical organizations in the region.
In my 46-year career, there have been
unexpected changes to the health care field.
Before Medicare and Medicaid, when the
federal government was talking about passing
health care legislation for the elderly, I was
with my mother at her doctor's visit. (The
physician) said to me, you know, you are crazy
for thinking about going into medicine. He
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Philadelphia Medicine Summer 2021

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