Eye disease drug awaits approval in Canada

A new drug for a degenerative eye disease, which must be injected directly into the eye, has been approved in the U.S. and could soon come to Canada.

The disease, called macular degeneration, affects straight-ahead vision. Its most serious form, wet macular degeneration, occurs when abnormal blood vessels grow and leak in the retina.

"They can't see to read, they can't see to drive, and as soon as you've lost those two functions, you've lost your independence," said Dr. Brian Leonard of the Ottawa Eye Institute, the ophthalmologist leading the clinical trial for the drug.

The new drug, Macugen, is not a cure for the degeneration, but it's the first treatment to target the source of the blood vessel leakage.

"We know that it does close these vessels off, and we know that it at least stops the blood flow and, perhaps even more important, stops the leakage there," said Leonard.

Following the drug's approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December, Health Canada promised to review the drug quickly.

The clinical trials have shown that the drug has few side-effects, but it must be injected into the eye to be effective.

"It is something that, in the end for most people, is not frightening, is not painful and is not intimidating," said Leonard.

Before Macugen, there was only one treatment for wet macular degeneration, a drug called Visudyne, which works when a laser is beamed into the centre of the eye.

Both Macugen and Visudyne are expensive and neither works for all patients.

Many experts would like to see a trial that combines both drugs, but the combined cost could be between $25,000 and $30,000 per eye for a course of treatment.