The "blind greed" saga continues.
The US National Institutes of Health said Thursday that it will fund a study to compare two drugs by Genentech used to treat the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.
One of the drugs, Lucentis, was approved by the FDA this year to treat the disorder, called age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. The other drug, Avastin, which is much cheaper, has been approved to treat colorectal cancer, although it has been widely used off-label to treat the eye condition, according to the NIH's National Eye Institute.
Both drugs are derived from the same mouse antibody.
But....
Genentech are charging around 100 times the price of Avastin for Lucentis!
More
The US National Institutes of Health said Thursday that it will fund a study to compare two drugs by Genentech used to treat the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.
One of the drugs, Lucentis, was approved by the FDA this year to treat the disorder, called age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. The other drug, Avastin, which is much cheaper, has been approved to treat colorectal cancer, although it has been widely used off-label to treat the eye condition, according to the NIH's National Eye Institute.
Both drugs are derived from the same mouse antibody.
But....
Genentech are charging around 100 times the price of Avastin for Lucentis!
More
Insider's view: Way to go NIH!
2 comments:
Although Avastin isn't approved to treat wet macular degeneration, is there really anything to prevent doctors from continuing to use it to treat people? It is my understanding that doctors can use medications as they choose, whether on- or off-label. Is there some hinderance I'm not seeing? I could see being sued for malpractice (maybe) if it didn't work, but could a drug company try to stop docs from using a product off-label? And, really, how screwed up is that?
No, there is really nothing to stop the doctors.
There is a problem with off-label prescribing, and it is that the drug may or may not have passed or even gone through clinical trials for that use.
Therefore, when drug reps push drugs for off-label use there are huge liability issues, but it happens anyway.
According to this article it is the ineffective and slow FDA that is to blame.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=179
But if something goes wrong for patients with off label prescribing, the companies will be the first ones sued.
It is a very complicated messy issue Mr. or Ms. Shade.
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