Eyetech Pharmaceuticals' drug to treat the leading cause of blindness in the elderly appeared to move closer to a broad government approval yesterday after an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration spoke favorably about it. The advisory panel was not asked to vote on whether the drug, Macugen, should be approved as a treatment for age-related macular degeneration. But committee members ruled unanimously that Eyetech had provided the F.D.A. with enough information to evaluate the drug. The panel members also did not seem to raise any serious new issues that would block approval. "It appears to me very...