April 4 (Reuters) - Boehringer Ingelheim on Thursday

said it will lay off some of its salesforce due to poor U.S.

sales of its biosimilar version of AbbVie's ( ABBV ) blockbuster

arthritis treatment Humira.

The German drugmaker said it planned to reduce its

customer-facing teams in favor of a hybrid in-person and virtual

sales model by June 30, in large part because pharmacy benefit

managers (PBMs) had kept branded Humira on their lists of

medicines for reimbursement.

That choice has led to less uptake of biosimilar versions of

Humira in the United States, including Boehringer's Cyltezo, it

said. The company, which has 53,000 employees worldwide, did not

provide details on how many people would be laid off.

Despite nine biosimilars being launched in the U.S. last

year, AbbVie ( ABBV ) has held onto more than 98% of the Humira market.

Boehringer launched Cyltezo last July but has only managed

to sell 1,487 prescriptions in total since then, according to

IQVIA data. Almost 2.8 million Humira prescriptions have been

written during the same period.

Humira until recently was the world's top selling

prescription medicine with annual sales reaching $22 billion in

2022, but has been eclipsed by Merck & Co's ( MRK ) cancer drug

Keytruda.

Unlike easy to manufacture pills that can be copied and sold

as generics at a huge discount once patents lapse, complex

biologic medicines made from living cells cannot be exactly

duplicated and so are known as biosimilars. The introduction of

biosimilars was supposed to help cut the price of expensive

biotech medicines that go off patent, if not by as much as

generics.

The German drugmaker priced its branded and unbranded

versions the drug at a 5% and 81% discount to Humira's 2023 list

price of $6,922 per month.

Swiss drugmaker Sandoz launched its biosimilar Hyrimoz with

the same prices as Boehringer and Amgen ( AMGN ), whose Amjevita was the

first Humira biosimilar to hit the U.S. market, priced at a 5%

and 55% discount to Humira.

Boehringer's Humira biosimilar was the first to be

designated interchangeable by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration, meaning it can be substituted for the original

without consulting the prescriber.

UnitedHealth Group's ( UNH ) Optum Rx and Cigna's ( CI )

Express Scripts, two of the largest U.S. PBMs, chose to include

Cyltezo on their insurance reimbursement lists last year

alongside Humira, Hyrimoz and Amjevita.