FDA approves Eylea as New Wet Macular Degeneration Treatment

The Food and Drug Administration announced last Friday that Regneron's new drug Eylea has received approval to treat the wet form of macular degeneration. Eylea will offer patients an alternative to Lucentis which is the current standard treatment. While Eylea is only $100 less per injection at $1850 compared to Lucentis at $1950, it will also have the advantage of being administered less frequently than Lucentis. Eylea's recommended dosing is once every 4 weeks for the first three injections and then once every 8 weeks thereafter, whereas Lucentis is usually administered once every 4 weeks. Macular degeneration is one of the leading causes of severe vision loss in the elderly. The wet form of macular degeneration is caused when abnormal "neovascular" blood vessels grow rapidly and leak fluid into the eye. Eylea works by blocking the action of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is a protein that causes the growth of these new blood vessels.*