Pharmaprojects R&D Pipeline News Feed
European launch of Novartis' Lucentis - relieving the burden of AMD
1st Feb 2007
Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Novartis has reported good news for European sufferers of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with the EU approval of Lucentis (ranibizumab). Of the news, AMD Alliance International chairman MacDonald Curran said: "Lucentis is a major breakthrough for the wet AMD community and gives hope to many of us".
Lucentis was launched last year in the US and is the first and only treatment to maintain and actually improve vision in wet AMD. It is a fragment of a recombinant anti-VEGF humanized antibody that binds to VEGF-165, VEGF-121 and VEGF-110, blocking the uncontrolled formation, growth and leakage of new blood vessels underneath the retina, which lead to the eventual development of wet AMD.
In contrast to Lucentis, the other therapeutics currently available for the treatment of wet AMD such as Gilead's VEGF-165 inhibitor Macugen, QLT's photodynamic therapy verteporfin and Alcon's anecortave acetate, reportedly act only to slow the inevitable decline in vision.
Novartis plans to launch Lucentis in Europe throughout 2007 and 2008. The product was originally discovered at US company Genentech and licensed to Novartis in 2003.
