Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

More details on the NIH head-to-head AMD study:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/business/06drug.html

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The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, said on its Web site yesterday that it would finance the study.

Maryann Redford, the administrator of the grant for this study, said the trial would cost about $16 million and involve 1,200 patients, who would be divided into four groups.

One group would get Lucentis injections every four weeks and another Avastin at that interval. Patients in the other two groups would get either Lucentis or Avastin on an as-needed basis in an effort to see whether vision could be adequately maintained with less frequent injections.

Dr. Redford said the patients would be followed for two years but that the study would take four years.

She said cost-saving was not the primary reason in her mind for the study. “Right now there is an uncontrolled experiment being done, in that many clinicians are using Avastin, but its safety and efficacy for this use hasn’t been tested,” she said. “If the fallout also is that it can be done much less expensively, great.”
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