US and European retinal specialists view AMD treatments

14 March 2014

Surveyed US and European retinal specialists ascribe a moderate to high unmet need for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) therapies that improve visual acuity, according to a new report from advisory firm Decision Resources.

In line with this finding, surveyed US retinal specialists expect that they would prescribe Ophthotech’s Fovista, a novel anti-PDGF combination agent, to 25% of their wet AMD patients. Fovista is an adjunctive, anti-platelet-derived growth factor that is being developed with the aim of improving visual acuity over monotherapy with existing anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) standards of care.

Other key findings from the DecisionBase report, titled Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration: How Receptive Are Retinal Specialists and Payers to Emerging Therapies Offering Vision Improvements or Greater Dosing Convenience? are:

Eylea and Lucentis: Eylea (aflibercept; Regeneron/Bayer HealthCare) achieves the position of current clinical gold standard in Decision Resources Group’s proprietary drug comparator model, thanks to physician perception of its less frequent dosing relative to market leader Lucentis (ranibizumab; Roche/Genentech/Novartis).
Unmet need: Regardless of the incremental delivery benefit offered by Eylea, surveyed US and European retinal specialists indicate that dosing frequency improvements remain an area of moderate to high unmet need in wet AMD.
Formulary inclusion: Surveyed managed care organization pharmacy directors, however, appear disinclined to include new agents offering once every three months dosing on formulary when priced at a premium to current agents.

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