NIH To Fund Study on Macular Degeneration Treatments

After months of dithering, the National Eye Institute finally announced it will sponsor a head-to-head trial between two Genentech treatments for macular degeneration, an affliction of old age that robs the eyesight of an estimated 155,000 Americans a year. Even though both antibodies cut off blood vessel formation in the same way, one costs nearly $2,000 a shot and the other about $50. It looks like the articles that appeared yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine forced NIH to do the right thing. NIH should be funding dozens of such comparative effectiveness trials.