Outcry prompts review on eye drugs

A record-breaking response from the public has forced a rethink of NHS guidelines on sight-saving drugs.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will carry out further "economic modelling" on draft guidance following a public outcry over treatment for sufferers of wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD).

A meeting schedule for Thursday on the guidance, which relates to the drugs Lucentis (ranibizumab) and Macugen (pegaptanib), has also been postponed.

A spokesman for Nice has now confirmed it had received its largest ever response to draft guidance.

It received more than 13,000 comments in total - more than 3,000 letters, emails and phone calls and around 10,000 signed leaflets issued by the Royal National Institute of Blind People.

The guidance, issued in June, recommended that Macugen should not be used at all on the NHS and only recommended Lucentis for about one in five patients with wet AMD.

Those suffers must have a particular type called predominantly classic subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation, it said. Nice recommended Lucentis for use only when both eyes were affected, and only for use in the better-seeing eye. The decision sparked outrage among campaigners.

Now, a statement from the body said further economic modelling will now be carried out.

It added: "As a result, appraisal committee discussion scheduled for August 9 will now be postponed. Given the need for a further two meetings, final guidance will not be published in December as previously planned."

Wet AMD is the leading cause of sight loss in the UK, and affects around a quarter of a million people. There are 26,000 new cases each year.

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