2:36pm UK, Wednesday April 02, 2008

The NHS is set to approve a new drug that could save the sight of thousands of people in the UK.

New drug to be approved by Nice

The Royal National Institute for the Blindsaid a treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration - or AMD - is due to be approved by the health watchdog.

AMD is the leading cause of sight loss in the UK and destroys the central region of the retina, the macula, leading to progressive loss of sight.

It comes in two forms - wet and dry - with the dry form being far more common.

But the wet type is the more aggressive and accounts for around 90% of blindness caused by the condition.

Around 19,000 of the 26,000 people diagnosed with wet AMD each year in the UK live in England and Wales.

Lucentis is already approved in Scotland.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) is due to released a document recommending Lucentis, also called ranibizumab, for treating wet AMD.

But it rejects another drug - Macugen (pegaptanib) - as not cost-effective.

If there are no appeals against the move, final guidance on the drug will be published in June and the NHS is expected to implement it.