
NHS wins landmark legal battle against drug companies about Avastin - DanBC
https://www.hsj.co.uk/finance-and-efficiency/breaking-nhs-wins-landmark-legal-battle-against-drug-companies/7023422.article#.W6TH58DoL6U.twitter
======
DanBC
Avastin is an old, cheap, medication. It's useful for wet age-related macular
degeneration, but it is not licenced for that. Drug companies ever-greened it
by tweaking it slightly and creating lucentis. Lucentis is almost identical to
avastin in everything but price: it is very much more expensive.

Doctors are allowed to prescibe off-label.

The patent holders for Lucentis have tried very hard to prevent this off-label
usage, going as far as suing the English NHS.

This case was won by the NHS (strictly, by twelve Clinical Commissioning
Groups. You can think of those as regional branches of the NHS who commission
services in their regions) so hopefully the NHS can save a lot of money and
more people can get treatment for wet AMD.

I'm posting this to HN because Lucentis and Avantis have been mentioned before
on HN, and it's a great example of unethical harmful behaviour from drug
companies.

