Despite some tough talk from Herb Kohl last fall, the Senate Special Committee on Aging will not hold a hearing into the controversy surrounding Genentech’s pricing for its Lucentis drug for age-related macular degeneration. “I don’t think that we’re going to schedule a hearing at this time,” a Senate investigator tells the In Vivo blog. “However, we may have some staff findings on this matter which we may make public in the near future.”

Genentech caused a furor a few months agoy by restricting distribution of its Avastin cancer med, which is widely used to treat wet macular degeneration, even though the drug was never approved for that purpose. The biotech wanted to halt sales to compounding pharmacies, citing FDA concerns about contamination when an Avastin vial is split into different doses. Opthalmologists complained the move would hurt patients, because Lucentis, which is approved for the eye disease, costs 40 times as much, or about $2,000.

In November, Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, called for an investigation into Genentech’s decision to halt supplies to compound pharmacies over concerns Medicare costs could rise by $3 billion annually. The following month, Genentech struck a deal with opthalmology groups that ended the restrictions on Avastin.

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid, meanwhile, last month recently responded to the committee, according to In Vivo, and committee staffers intend to put together a staff memo containing findings from the investigation. The staff identified ‘interesting details’ in the FDA inspectional papers, e-mails and interviews, as well as ‘noteworthy’ findings on the controversial issue of whether Genentech promised to provide free Lucentis for an NIH-sponsored, head-to-head study comparing Avastin with Lucentis. The findings of the investigation could be made public in a few weeks, In Vivo writes.

Hat tip to the In Vivo blog