Marketing
On November 3, 2010, The New York Times reported that Genentech began offering secret rebates to about 300 ophthalmologists in an apparent inducement to get them to use more ranibizumab rather than their less expensive bevacizumab. This may have been in anticipation of the results of the CATT clinical trial, which was sponsored by the National Eye Institute, and compared the relative safety and efficacy of ranibizumab and bevacizumab in treating AMD. Some retina specialists consider the tactic bribery. In 2008, bevacizumab cost Medicare only $20 million for about 480,000 injections, while ranibizumab cost Medicare $537 million for only 337,000 injections. A small study showed no superior effect of ranibizumab versus bevacizumab in direct comparison. The CATT trial data was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in May 2011. The trial showed that the two drugs "had equivalent effects on visual acuity when administered according to the same schedule". The authors also concluded that differences in the rates of side effects required further study.
Read more about this topic: Ranibizumab