The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recently made a dramatic U-turn in new draft guidance on sight saving drugs. The new draft ruling, issued on 14th December 2007, recommends a dose-capping proposal to make Lucentis available on the NHS for people with wet Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The guidance recommends the NHS provide up to 14 injections of Lucentis per eye which should result in stable vision for most patients and improved vision for around 25 percent of patients. It recommends the manufacturer pay for any additional doses required.
This new document is great news for patients who have recently developed Wet AMD - the UK's leading cause of blindness. The previous consultation document from NICE (issued in June 2007) proposed providing treatment only to patients who have already lost their sight in one eye and then also only if they had a certain type of Wet MD. This would have meant only one in five patients would have been treated.
The U-Turn from NICE comes after a public outcry from over 13,000 people, all outraged at the previous recommendations to limit the use of the Lucentis and Macugen drugs to treat wet AMD in only 20 percent of patients.
Full implementation will not take place until late spring 2008. In the meantime the struggle to get funding continues.
The new draft ruling does not recommend the use of Macugen.
For further information, please see the following websites:
