Dr. Jeffrey S. Heier

Jeffrey S. Heier, M.D., Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston, said that while today's approved therapies on average only slow progression of disease, Lucentis can offer true stabilization and/or visual improvement.At presstime, it was awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, however.In the most recent data released by the company, known as the Anchor study, which is part of the Phase III trials for the FDA, Lucentis outperformed Visudyne (verteporfin for injection, Novartis AG, Basel, Switzerland) photodynamic therapy (PDT). At one year on PDT, 64% of patients maintained or improved vision (defined as a loss of less than 15 letters in visual acuity), according to results the company released.Meanwhile, about 94% of patients treated with 0.3 mg of Lucentis and 96% treated with 0.5 mg of Lucentis maintained or improved vision, results showed. "If you were in those Lucentis groups, essentially you had what amounts to roughly only 5% of all patients losing three lines of vision," Dr. Heier said.
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The frequency of Retaane administration certainly is an advantage, but Lucentis is still more efficacious, Dr. Heier said. "If results were comparable I think you would see people clearly favoring treatment administered every six months," Dr. Heier said."But results aren't comparable," he said, noting that Alcon's own Phase III study showed Retaane treatment is equivalent to PDT in maintaining patient vision while the ANCHOR press release suggests that the results in this phase III trial are comparable to the results reported in other recent Lucentis trials (MARINA and FOCUS).
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Editors' note: Dr. Heier is a member of the Lucentis Advisory Board and is a consultant for Eyetech Pharmaceuticals.