Eylea Injections Cost
Eylea, an injectable medicine for the eye available by prescription only, is used to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), macular edema and diabetic retinopathy for patients who suffer from diabetic macular edema. This injectable medicine is designed to help slow down the disease and help maintain vision.
How much does Eylea cost?
The cost of Eylea primarily depends upon your health insurance coverage and the doctor you choose for your treatment. According to this Chicago Tribune article, the reported costs be dose is said to be $2,000 per injection without insurance, with Medicare covering it. If you do have a health insurance policy, talk with your provider and/or doctor’s office to know what you will be responsible for as the thousands of policies on the market do vary in terms of coverage, co-pays and deductibles. Eylea is only available in a 0.05 ml single-use vial, with each vial designed for single eye use only.
According to the company’s official website, they do offer a comprehensive support program that is designed to help eligible patients with the cost of the medication if you’re unable to afford it and/or your health insurance company doesn’t cover it. To learn more about this support program, you can view the official brochure to see if the company can help. If approved, you can receive up to $10,000 in assistance per year.
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Eylea costs about $1,800~, while its competitors, Avastin, retails for $50, whereas Lucentis can cost $2,000. The higher price tags, as per the Academy, is due to the costly process of FDA approval and the intended usage. While Avastin can be as much as Eylea when used for colon cancer, it’s a fraction of the costs for eye injections since it only uses 1/40th of the drug in a single dosage.
How does the medicine work?
Wet macular degeneration will occur when the atypical blood vessels start to grow beneath the retina, leaking blood and/or a fluid that begins to cause blurry vision. A chemical known as a vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, is what is responsible for this growth, and anti-VEGF treatments, such as Eylea, seek out these damaging VEGF molecules and will block them, essentially reducing the growth and leaking, helping stabilize your vision and even improve your sight in some circumstances.
These treatments are always performed inside your ophthalmologist’s office, where he or she will administer anesthetic and antiseptic drops on the eyes to help numb it, followed by administering the drug via an injection. While the needle sounds scary, Raj Maturi, M.D., via AAO.org, notes the needle is “very small and the injection is very quick – a fraction of a second.” Your doctor, in most cases, will recommend you come back every couple of weeks or months depending on your individual case since each situation will be unique. Repeated treatments will be necessary to see a continued benefit.
Eylea side effects
Common side effects include bleeding of the tissues that cover the white part of the eye, eye pain, floaters, cataracts, increased eye pressure and/or the separation of the gel-like substance from the retina. For a full list of side effects, refer to this FDA guide.
Eylea injection frequency
The recommended dosages vary depending upon the reason for treatment, with the averages noted below:
For neovascular (Wet) age-related muscular degeneration (AMD), a 2 mg injection is injected every four weeks for the first three months, followed by a 2 mg injection once every eight weeks.
For macular edema following retinal vein occlusion (RVO), a 2 mg injection is recommended every four weeks.
Diabetic macular edema (DME) and diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with diabetic macular edema may receive a two mg injection into the eye every four weeks for the first five injections, followed by two mg injections every eight weeks after.
Tips to know
Eylea is approved by the FDA for use in the eye and was approved in November 2011.
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Average Reported Cost: $2000
How much did you spend?
- Marcia A Durland (Sarasota, Florida) paid $2000 and said:
$400 copay, the doctor administration and the scan.
Was it worth it? Yes
