Cheap blindness drug Lucentis should be made widely available, says World Health Organisation
All countries should make available a cheap, unlicensed drug to prevent blindness in older people in preference to the expensive licensed version promoted by pharmaceutical companies, a World Health Organisation committee has ruled.
The WHO's essential medicines committee has rejected an application from Novartis to have the expensive licensed drug Lucentis added to the list of drugs all countries should stock.
The decision is a blow for the pharmaceutical companies that have been fighting the growing use of Avastin for age-related wet macular degeneration.
The two drugs are made by the same company, Genentech, owned by the Swiss giant Roche, which has declined to seek a licence for Avastin to prevent blindness. Novartis markets Lucentis in Europe.
Critics accuse the companies of blocking access to a cheap drug that could slow or prevent blindness in millions of people around the world. A head-to-head trial called Ivan, which was funded by the UK government, found that two years of Lucentis treatment cost over £18,500 (HK$226,000) compared with £3,000 for Avastin.
Ivan found the drugs work equally well, but because it does not have a licence for use in eyes, Avastin can only be prescribed by individual doctors prepared to do it on their own responsibility.
In 2013, the WHO put Avastin for macular degeneration on its list of essential medicines that every country should be able to offer its people. Novartis then requested Lucentis be considered for inclusion. But the WHO has declined. The latest edition of the essential medicines list, just published, includes Avastin (generic name bevacizumab) but not Lucentis (ranibizumab).
Professor John Harris, Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester said:
"Research has demonstrated that Avastin is as effective and as safe as Lucentis but at a fraction of the cost.
