Paid to promote eye drug, and prescribing it widely

Ophthalmologists had been enthusiastically using Genetech’s cancer drug Avastin, which cost about $50 a dose, to treat a common eye disease in the elderly, wet macular degeneration. Then Genentech introduced Lucentis, a nearly equivalent drug that cost $2,000 a dose and was approved specifically to treat the disease. Now, a new federal database shows that many of the doctors who were the top billers for Lucentis were also among the highest-paid consultants for Genentech, earning thousands of dollars to help promote the new drug. Eric Campbell, professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.

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