Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost saving to the NHS for the treatment of Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration by the use of Avastin instead of the drug Lucentis.

Bevacizumab (Avastin) is not licensed for the treatment of Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration and it is up to the manufacturer to seek a licence for a specific indication.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently developing a clinical guideline on the diagnosis and management of age-related macular degeneration. NICE’s draft guideline, which has been consulted upon and is subject to change, stated that “no clinically significant differences in effectiveness and safety between aflibercept, ranibizumab and bevacizumab have been seen in the trials considered by the guideline committee.” NICE currently expects to publish final guidance in January 2018. Eylea and Lucentis are the brand names for aflibercept and ranibizumab respectively.

The Department has made no detailed estimate of the cost saving to the National Health Service if bevacizumab were to be used instead of ranbizumab (Lucentis) for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.

Clinicians can prescribe any treatment in consultation with their patient including an unlicensed product or a product not licensed for a particular indication, which they consider to be the best available medicine to meet the individual clinical needs of their patient, subject to the local commissioner of NHS services agreeing to fund the treatment.