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BLOG: Multidose Restasis v2.0
“Frankly, I don’t get what the big deal is all about. Allergan already has a multidose Restasis dispenser on the market.”
“Seriously, how is this even new? Charmin has been doing this for decades!”
The best jokes always have a bit of truth in them, don’t they? These came courtesy of my wife (the smart one in our marriage) as well as from one of my peers, a male doc my age who has been at the forefront of dry eye disease care for more than 15 years. He and I both came to the same conclusion about dry eye when we were (much) younger LASIK surgeons: You do whatever you have to do within the rules to get your patient the care she needs.
Like emptying that “single-use” dropperette, getting as many doses out of it as you can before you toss it.
When Restasis Multidose v2.0 (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.05%, Allergan) was announced last fall, I offered some preliminary thoughts. Now that the buzz is rising and the media push is cranking up (seriously, three visits to my office this week alone), it’s reasonable to weigh in again. The technology behind the new Restasis bottle is extraordinary. For the first time we get a bottle that will contain a non-preserved medication, one that is engineered to barricade the medicine in the bottle against any invasion through the nozzle. That’s big. Really. Huge. Please tell me that the next thing I get to write about is non-preserved Alphagan P (brimonidine tartrate ophthalmic solution, Allergan) and Lumigan (bimatoprost ophthalmic solution, Allergan). That will make us DED folks happy.
Allergan has been quite pleased to tell us all that it is not raising the price of Restasis when it comes in a bottle, while being careful not to use “cost” and “price” interchangeably. As I noted in that prior post, the new bottle contains a 45-day supply of Restasis. A “1-month” tray of dropperettes contains a 60- to 90-day supply, as we all know, and therefore has a lower monthly cost. To its credit, and I am sincere in saying this, Allergan has pledged to continue to produce Restasis in dropperettes and to make it as freely available as it will be in bottles so that doctors and their patients can make a choice. It’ll be easy enough to know if this changes.
My call? The DED space has room for both Restasis Multidose v1.0 and v2.0. Some people will need the bottle and some will choose it over the “value” dispenser. You know, just like double-ply Charmin.
Disclosure: White reports he is a consultant for Bausch + Lomb, Allergan, Shire and Eyemaginations; is on the speakers board for Bausch + Lomb, Allergan and Shire; and has a financial interest in TearScience.