Pfizer's Macugen cleared in Scotland

World drug giant Pfizer has welcomed a statement from the Scottish Medicine's Consortium, the UK agency responsible for clinical evaluation of drugs for use by the National Health Service in Scotland, recommending the use of Macugen (pegaptanib sodium injection) for patients with neovascular age-related macular degneration in Scotland. The progressive eye disease affects a quarter of million people in the whole of the UK and can cause significant sight loss in as little as three months.

The SMC recommends that, in Scotland, the use of Macugen should be restricted to patients with visual acuity between 6/12 and 6/60 (inclusive) and Pfizer noted that, up until now, many neovascular AMD patients have progressed to blindness as there have been limited treatment options for the disease. Aside from medical costs associated with impaired vision such as accidents or falls, or treatment for co-morbidities such as depression, there are also considerable social care costs such as disability living allowance and low vision and disability services, not to mention the indirect costs to families and carers, the firm stated.

John Legg, director of Royal National Institute of the Blind in Scotland, said that "every year some 2,000 people in Scotland are diagnosed with this condition. We are well aware of the financial pressures that the NHS is under but, as the SMC has recognized, if we set the cost of treatment against the cost of blindness it is, in fact, very good value for money, as it actually saves people's sight."