In mid-November 2020 Novartis addressed the root causes and potential risk factors for Beovu patients developing vision loss by releasing some findings by its experts examining these adverse events associated with Beovu injections.
From this November 14, 2020, Reuters new report, “Novartis identifies possible risk factors for Beovu patients”, we get the latest information about eye side effects associated with Beovu injections:
According to Novartis’s review, among 12,000 patients treated with Beovu, the highest observed risk for experiencing retinal vasculitis and/or retinal vascular occlusion in the six months after first treatment was prior intraocular inflammation and/or vascular occlusion in the 12 months before the first Beovu injection.
The observed overall risk rate of 0.46% for all Beovu-treated patients increased to 3.97% in people who had the conditions before treatment, Novartis said.
To date, case reports of Beovu patients developing vision loss have established that:
- Retinal vasculitis and/or retinal vascular occlusion can occur as early as the first or second Beovu injections; and,
- Severe vision loss or other changes in vision within one to two weeks of the Beovu injections.
More information about Beovu patients developing vision loss is set forth in this article, “ReST committee provides update on brolucizumab”, published by Healio Ophthalmology on November 15, 2020:
The American Society of Retina Specialists Research and Safety in Therapeutics (ReST) committee began to receive reports of intraocular inflammation alone and retinal vasculitis in patients who underwent injections of Beovu (brolucizumab, Novartis) following its FDA approval for neovascular age-related macular degeneration in October 2019. To date, the committee has received 120 reports….
Through April 2020, the committee received reports of retinal vasculitis in 26 eyes of 25 patients. These patients showed a more precipitous loss of vision that did not recover, with 46% of eyes losing more than three lines of vision and 35% of eyes losing more than six lines of vision….
We are investigating possible Beovu drug injury lawsuits against Novartis for patients who suffered vision loss following their Beovu treatments.
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