NHS could save £84m using cheaper drug to prevent blindness, trial finds

Researchers say Avastin is just as good as more-expensive Lucentis for treating wet age-related macular degenerationAn image of an eye with wet AMD, the most common cause of blindness, diagnosed in 23,000 people in the UK every year. Photograph: Queen's University Belfast/PASarah Boseley, health editorThe NHS could save more than £84m a year if it used a cheap, unlicensed drug to treat people in danger of going blind rather than the expensive one currently licensed and promoted by leading pharmaceutical companies for the purpose, a ground-breaking trial has shown.Researchers led by Prof Usha Chakravarthy from Queen's University Belfast have finally provided an answer to the controversial question of whether the cancer drug Avastin can safely be used to treat people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness.Their conclusion at the end of a two-year trial, published on Friday inthe Lancet, is that the bowel cancer drug Avastin – cheap because one dose can be split into many – is just as good for this purpose as Lucentis, marketed by the drug company Novartis for more than 10 times the price. One shot of Avastin, injected into the eye, costs £60, while a dose of Lucentis sells for £700.Many doctors, first in the United States and now worldwide, have been giving their patients Avastin because of the cost, but Genentech, which developed both drugs, Roche, which markets Avastin for bowel cancer but not AMD, and Novartis, which sells ...

Source: PharmaGossip - July 19, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs