Lucentis™ (ranibizumab) offers newest treatment option for people with wet form of the disease

San Francisco—The American Academy of Ophthalmology recognizes the Food and Drug Administration’s approval today of ranibizumab, the latest drug introduced to treat neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or wet AMD. The drug, developed by Genentech, Inc. under the brand name Lucentis™, is a new addition to several other treatments, including Eyetech Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer’s Macugen® and Novartis’ Visudyne® (combined with photodynamic therapy), designed to combat the effect of AMD.

“Lucentis is a new weapon in an ophthalmologist’s arsenal to fight age-related macular degeneration,” said H. Dunbar Hoskins Jr., MD, executive vice president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “The launch of Lucentis serves as a critical reminder for everyone that AMD is a real threat to vision. It is a leading cause of blindness and severe vision loss for people over 50. With the aging baby boomer population, diagnosis of this disease is expected to double by 2020.”

Macular degeneration is the deterioration or breakdown of the central portion of the macula or retina, which destroys central vision, making reading, driving and recognizing faces difficult. There are two general types of macular degeneration, dry and wet. Dry AMD is more common, but wet AMD progresses more quickly and accounts for about 90 percent of the severe vision loss associated with this disease.

Dry AMD occurs when the layer of cells beneath the retina begins to deteriorate, which affects the light-sensitive photoreceptor cells of the central retina. Wet AMD occurs when abnormal blood vessels begin to grow under the macula. These new blood vessels leak fluid or blood, causing central vision to blur or be lost. 

There is no cure for either form of AMD. Current FDA-approved treatment options can only help slow the rate of progression of wet AMD in some patients. Genentech’s investigational studies show that its drug may improve vision in some patients.

Lucentis – designed to block the new blood vessel growth and leakiness that leads to disease progression in wet AMD and vision loss – is injected into the eye. Only an ophthalmologist can provide the treatment.

Currently more than 1.75 million people in the United States have AMD and 7 million more people have earlier stages of the disease. The Academy urges all patients, particularly those over the age of 50 to get regular eye exams by an ophthalmologist to screen for AMD and other eye disorders.