Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure

[Guest guest]

" Zepp " <zepp

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:12:16 -0700

[Zepps_News] #Genentech blocks cheap blindness cure

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1799772,00.html

 

Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure

 

Company will only seek licence for medicine that costs 100 times more

 

Sarah Boseley, health editor

Saturday June 17, 2006

The Guardian

 

Eye surgery

An ophthalmologist prepares a patient's eye for surgery. Photograph: Al

Behrman/AP

 

 

A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply

and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it

wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.

 

Ophthalmologists around the world, on their own initiative, are

injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin into

the

eyes of patients with wet macular degeneration, a common condition of

older age that can lead to severely impaired eyesight and blindness.

They report remarkable success at very low cost because one phial can

be

split and used for dozens of patients.

 

Article continues

But Genentech, the company that invented Avastin, does not want it used

in this way. Instead it is applying to license a fragment of Avastin,

called Lucentis, which is packaged in the tiny quantities suitable for

eyes at a higher cost. Speculation in the US suggests it could cost

£1,000 per dose instead of less than £10. The company says Lucentis is

specifically designed for eyes, with modifications over Avastin, and

has

been through 10 years of testing to prove it is safe.

 

Unless Avastin is approved in the UK by the National Institute for

Clinical Excellence (Nice) it will not be universally available within

the NHS. But because Genentech declines to apply for a licence for this

use of Avastin, Nice cannot consider it. In spite of the growing drugs

bill of the NHS, it will appraise, and probably approve, Lucentis next

year.

 

Although Nice's role is to look at cost-effectiveness, it says it

cannot

appraise a drug and pass it for use in the NHS unless the drug is

referred to it by the Department of Health. The department says its

hands are tied.

 

" The drug company hasn't applied for it to be licensed for this use. It

wouldn't be referred to Nice until they have made the first move, " said

a Department of Health spokeswoman. " They need to step up and get a

licence. If they are not getting it licensed, why aren't they? "

 

New drugs for the condition are badly needed: those we have now only

slow the progression to blindness. With Avastin, many patients get

their

sight back with just one or two injections.

 

Avastin was first used on human eyes by Philip Rosenfeld, an

ophthalmologist in the US, who was aware of animal studies carried out

by Genentech that showed potential in eye conditions. This unlicensed

use of Avastin has spread across continents entirely by word of mouth

from one doctor to another. It has now been injected into 7,000 eyes,

with considerable success.

 

Professor Rosenfeld has published his results and a website has been

launched in the US to collate the experiences of doctors from around

the

world. But although the evidence is good, regulators require randomised

controlled trials before they grant licences, which generally only the

drug companies can afford to carry out.

 

Prof Rosenfeld said the real issue was drug company profits. " This

truly

is a wonder drug, " he said. " This shows both how good they [the drug

companies] are and on the flip side, how greedy they are. " He would

like

to see governments fund clinical trials of drugs such as Avastin in the

public interest.

 

Rising drug bills are a big problem on both sides of the Atlantic. In

the UK, said David Wong, chairman of the scientific committee of the

Royal College of Ophthalmologists, doctors are fighting battles to

persuade primary care trusts to pay for drugs to stop their patients

going blind while they wait for Nice to decide on Lucentis and another

expensive drug called Macugen. That decision is not expected before the

end of next year.

 

About 20,000 people are diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration

in the UK each year. " From the patient's point of view, if they have an

eye condition that deteriorates very quickly, there is no question of

waiting, " said Professor Wong. " We're talking about days and weeks,

rather than months. The question is should we do nothing and say there

is no randomised controlled trial to prove Avastin is of value? " He

called for primary care trusts to agree to pay for the planned

phasing-in of new drugs for the condition.

 

Last night Genentech said its main concern over the use of Avastin to

treat eye conditions was patient safety. " While there are some small,

single-centre, uncontrolled studies of Avastin being performed, safety

data on patients who are treated with Avastin off-label is not being

collected in a standard or organised fashion, " said a spokeswoman for

the company.

 

Pharmaceutical firms say they need to launch drugs at high prices

because of the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on developing them.

Critics point out that the company's calculations also include the

marketing budget.

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government

talking

about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing

has

changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,

we're

talking about getting a court order before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

 

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Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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-------------

[Guest guest]

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after two weeks of using these essential oils my eyesight improved

and the astigmatism was GONE !!!! These oils helped my eyes

detoxify and increase circulation to the optic nerves. At worst for

any eye problem you can use specific electronics, tap around eyes,

etc.

 

, " califpacific "

<califpacific wrote:

>

> " Zepp " <zepp

> Fri, 16 Jun 2006 20:12:16 -0700

> [Zepps_News] #Genentech blocks cheap blindness cure

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1799772,00.html

>

> Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure

>

> Company will only seek licence for medicine that costs 100 times

more

>

> Sarah Boseley, health editor

> Saturday June 17, 2006

> The Guardian

>

> Eye surgery

> An ophthalmologist prepares a patient's eye for surgery.

Photograph: Al

> Behrman/AP

>

>

> A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is

cheaply

> and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind

because it

> wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.

>

> Ophthalmologists around the world, on their own initiative, are

> injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin

into

> the

> eyes of patients with wet macular degeneration, a common condition

of

> older age that can lead to severely impaired eyesight and

blindness.

> They report remarkable success at very low cost because one phial

can

> be

> split and used for dozens of patients.

>

> Article continues

> But Genentech, the company that invented Avastin, does not want it

used

> in this way. Instead it is applying to license a fragment of

Avastin,

> called Lucentis, which is packaged in the tiny quantities suitable

for

> eyes at a higher cost. Speculation in the US suggests it could

cost

> £1,000 per dose instead of less than £10. The company says

Lucentis is

> specifically designed for eyes, with modifications over Avastin,

and

> has

> been through 10 years of testing to prove it is safe.

>