After the announcement of the reimbursement of Avastin in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the Swiss laboratory Roche announces that it declines all responsibility for the use of this drug, initially intended for the treatment of some intravenous cancers.
The laboratory considers this decision “contrary to the interests of the patients” and in “contradiction with the warnings”. “Roche, which does not recommend its use, cannot assume the responsibility and the obligations which are unilaterally imposed on it,” said the French subsidiary of the Swiss group, in a press release.
The Roche laboratory thus reacts to the publication, last week, of a ministerial decree authorizing the reimbursement of the prescription of Avastin to treat age-related macular degeneration.
This decision will make it possible to reduce the costs of Social Security. Indeed, Lucentis, marketed by the Novartis laboratory, and used to treat AMD costs twenty to thirty times more expensive than Avastin (around 900 euros for the injection for the first against 30 to 50 euros for the second) and represents the first an expense item for health insurance with an amount of 428 million euros per year.
Last June, the Swiss laboratory had already initiated an appeal against this temporary authorization affirming that “this use outside Marketing Authorization (marketing authorization) of Avastin in AMD can only be carried out under the sole responsibility of the State. or any third party authorized by the State, doctors, pharmacists who repackage it. ” But the date of the hearing is not yet known.
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