[Ip-health] Sen. Kohl Queries Medicare on Genentech Drug

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/10/19/sen-kohl-queries-medicare-on-
genentech-drugs/

October 19, 2007, 5:14 pm
Sen. Kohl Queries Medicare on Genentech Drugs
Posted by Jacob Goldstein

Herb Kohl, the chairman of the Senate=92s Special Committee on Aging,
asked the federal agency that runs Medicare some tough questions
about the billions of dollars it may have to spend if lots of
Medicare patients with a serious eye disease use Genentech=92s Lucentis
instead of the company=92s Avastin.

Kohl=92s letter, sent yesterday, cites a story that ran in the WSJ last
week (and first appeared, in shorter form, in the Health Blog),
describing a move by Genentech to block sales of the the drug to
certain specialized pharmacies. That could make it more difficult for
some patients to be treated with Avastin for an eye disease called
wet macular degeneration.

Avastin, a cancer drug, hasn=92t been approved for use in the eye. But
many retina specialists maintain it is as effective as Lucentis that
is approved to treat wet macular degeneration. Genentech has said the
FDA voiced safety concerns about the repackaging of Avastin for use
in the eye.

A dose of Avastin for the eye costs about $40, compared with about
$2,000 for Lucentis.

The letter asks the acting administrator of the Center for Medicare
and Medicaid Services how much the agency has spent on Lucentis and
Avastin in the last few years. Kohl also wants to know what CMS has
done =93to explore the reduction of expenditures on expensive drugs
such as Lucentis by using alternative treatments such as Avastin.=94

Another branch of the government is taking direct action on the
Avastin/Lucentis question. The National Institutes of Health has
committed to fund a head-to-head trial of the drugs to see how they
compare in treating macular degeneration.



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Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer.
Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J. Joubert  p.249
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=3DGallica&O=3DNUMM-88671
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it