By Curtis Chambers, President of the L.A. County Deputy Probation Officers Union (AFSCME Local 685), and Regino Torres, President of the Supervising Deputy Probation Officers Union (Teamsters Local 986)
For a Californian living with rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, or cancer, the medicine that keeps them alive can cost thousands of dollars per dose. An FDA-approved biosimilar medication that delivers the same result for a fraction of the price often sits on the same pharmacy shelf, yet the patient never gets the option.
That is not a failure of the pharmacist, or the doctor. It is the result of policies that have not kept pace with the availability of lower-cost biosimilars, and one the California Legislature has just moved to address.
SB 1094 would let pharmacists substitute lower-cost biosimilars for brand-name biologics the same way they have substituted generics for decades, and it has earned the support of patients, employers, and public service workers. The bill now heads to Governor Newsom for his signature.
The science behind this shift is not new or experimental. Biosimilars are FDA-approved medicines that have gone through rigorous testing to demonstrate they match their reference biologic in safety, purity, and clinical effect. Nearly 90 have already been approved for use in the United States. The FDA does not distinguish between a biosimilar and its brand name counterpart in terms of the outcome a patient can expect—the only meaningful difference is the price tag.
That price gap is enormous, and it is driving the affordability crisis facing California families. Biologics account for just five percent of prescriptions written in this country, yet they consume more than half of all drug spending.
In California, health plan spending on prescription drugs has increased by $6.2 billion since 2017—a 72% jump—with nearly $1.3 billion of that increase coming in 2024 alone. For patients, that translates into rationed injections, parents splitting a child’s dose to stretch a prescription further, and families forced to choose between medication and rent.
SB 1094 addresses this directly, without upending the doctor-patient relationship. The legislation allows a pharmacist to substitute an FDA-approved biosimilar for a prescribed brand-name biologic, unless the prescriber has specifically indicated otherwise. Physicians retain full authority over their patients’ treatment. This is not a new or untested model, but rather the same substitution framework California has relied on for generic drugs for decades, simply extended to biosimilars.
As Presidents of the L.A. County Deputy Probation Officers Union (AFSCME Local 685) and the Supervising Deputy Probation Officers Union (Teamsters Local 986), we understand what rising drug costs mean in practice. In letters urging the Governor’s support, our unions argued that these costs land directly on our members and their families at the pharmacy counter, and warned against letting drug companies push workers towards more expensive options their health plans were never designed to absorb.
SB 1094 also includes reporting requirements to track whether these substitutions are actually lowering consumer cost-sharing and premiums, a safeguard built to ensure the savings reach the families the bill is meant to help, not just insurers’ bottom lines.
We want to thank all legislators who voted to free our families from Big Pharma’s big price tags, but especially Senator Weber Pierson as the sponsor. As a physician and a legislator, she has refused to accept that Californians should pay monopoly prices for medicines that already have proven, lower-cost equivalents, and SB 1094 reflects her commitment to bringing prescription drug costs down for every family in this state, whether they are covered through a union contract, a small business plan, or a public program.
The Legislature has done its part by passing this bill. The savings are documented, the safeguards are in place, and the patients are waiting.
Governor Newsom, please sign SB 1094 and let California’s families finally share in the savings that biosimilars were created to deliver.
