Avastin versus Lucentis: Why It Matters A.
NIH Study Finds Avastin and Lucentis are Equally Effective in Treating AMD. News May 02, 2011 Read Time: Researchers are reporting results from the first year of a two-year clinical trial that Avastin, a drug approved to treat some cancers and that is commonly used off-label to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), is as effective as.
Speaking in Dublin at the recent International AMD and Retina Congress 2013, Dr Marco Zarbin, Chair of the Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said the Comparison of AMD Treatment Trials (CATT) study had shown that patients given Avastin had a 1.3-fold increased risk of serious systemic adverse events, when compared with those who got Lucentis.
Cost regulators for NHS-funded therapies in England and Wales have issued updated guidelines for the treatment of wet AMD, which continue to back use of both Bayer’s Eylea and Novartis’ Lucentis, but the GMC says doctors should not fear prescribing Roche's Avastin off-label if they believe it is clinically appropriate and in the patient's best interest.
Lucentis (ranibizumab) is a monoclonal antibody indicated for the treatment of diabetic macular edema. Diabetic macular edema occurs when the damaged blood vessels from diabetic retinopathy leak fluid and lipids onto the macula. The use of Lucentis 0.5mg for treatment of wet AMD was approved by the US FDA in June 2006. Image courtesy of Novartis.
In 2007, a team of researchers led by Professor Usha Chakravarthy, of Queen’s University, Belfast set out to compare Lucentis with Avastin in a randomised controlled trial, to find out whether Avastin is as clinically and cost-effective as Lucentis in treating nAMD.
CLARKSBURG, MD-This week, the second-year results of an important clinical trial on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), known as the Comparison of AMD Treatments Trials (or CATT), were published in the journal Ophthalmology. Researchers found that two drugs known as Avastin (bevacizumab) and Lucentis (ranibizumab), commonly used to treat the wet form of AMD, were similarly effective in.
Bevacizumab (Avastin) was licensed as a cancer treatment in 2005. Ranibizumab (Lucentis) was licensed for the treatment of age related macular degeneration (AMD) in 2007. Both treatments were developed by Genentech, which was bought by Roche in 2009. Novartis holds the license to sell ranibizumab outside the US. Novartis retains data.