February 21, 2012 - Exton, Penn. – The LaunchTrends^®: Eylea Wave 1 report, which measures product uptake and commercial effectiveness at one month post launch, finds that 40% of surveyed retinal specialists have initiated trial on Regeneron’s Eylea, the newest treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD). One key advantage of Eylea over its main competitors, Genentech’s Lucentis and Avastin, is the formal dosing schedule, which allows dosing every eight weeks following an initial three monthly doses, whereas Lucentis and Avastin are given every month. A key barrier to using Eylea which surveyed physicians experience is insurance coverage. As a physician-administered medication, Eylea needs a brand-specific “J-code” to be issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This has not yet happened, thus some insurance companies will not yet provide reimbursement for Eylea.

Retinal specialists anticipate that six months in the future, a quarter of their wet AMD patients who receive injected medical treatment will be receiving Eylea. Likely patients to receive Eylea are a mix of those being switched from existing treatment, whether Lucentis or Avastin, plus some patients newly diagnosed with wet AMD.

About LaunchTrends^®
LaunchTrends^®: Eylea is a four-wave syndicated report series designed to track the uptake of Regeneron’s Eylea at one month, three months, six months, and one year following its commercial availability. LaunchTrends^® assess trial and use of new products, obstacles to use, reasons to use, typical patient types, lines of therapy, product perceptions, promotional efforts and messages, and product satisfaction. In the current wave of research, BioTrends surveyed 75 retinal specialists and conducted qualitative telephone interviews with a subset of 20 of the survey respondents in January 2012. In addition to this series of reports, BioTrends will also track the US uptake of Eylea in other reports:

• PatientTrends^®: AMD (US) to be published in June
• TreatmentTrends^®: AMD (US) to be published in September
• ChartTrends^®: AMD (US) to be published in October