Who here thinks drug companies (pharmaceuticals) are altruistic...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

30. That was the cost nearly a decade ago.

I haven't needed those shots in years. I'll spare you the long story, but basically I developed scar tissue behind the cracks of an elastic membrane (which is itself behind the retina), and that stopped my problem in my one remaining good eye.

I went blind pretty fast in the other eye because the problems started in that eye shortly before Avastin was discovered by ophthalmologists to be a fantastic treatment.

And bear in mind that Medicare and other health insurance companies paid the much higher price for Lucentis if that's what age-related macular degeneration patients chose instead of Avastin, despite how numerous trials had shown they worked equally well as a treatment. But Genentech's marketing team worked hard to advertise Lucentis as superior and safer, so naturally that's what more elderly patients chose. So bigger payouts from the insurance companies were the result.

Genentech claimed they had to charge that much to recuperate the costs of FDA approval.