Article: Eye drugs put Genentech in testy spot

AVASTIN is one of Genentech's blockbuster cancer drugs. It treats patients with colon and lung cancer, and is currently being studied worldwide in about 300 clinical trials for more than 20 different tumor types.

But Avastin has another use separate from cancer. In the offices of eye doctors around the country, patients are being given the drug off-label, or not for its FDA-approved usage, to treat a major cause of vision loss, called neovascular age-related macular degeneration or AMD.

That's where the situation becomes awkward for Genentech. The company's superstar drug is going head-to-head with another drug called Lucentis that was approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug ...

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