A drug which ‘reboots’ a person’s immune system has been shown to be an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who have already failed to respond to the first drug with which they were treated (a ‘first-line’ therapy), as well as affected individuals who were previously untreated. The results of these two phase III clinical trials were just published in the journal The Lancet.
The new studies, sponsored by Genzyme (a Sanofi company) and Bayer Schering Pharma, showed that alemtuzumab significantly reduces the number of attacks (or relapses) experienced by people with MS compared to interferon beta-1a (known commercially as Rebif). This was seen both in patients who had not previously received any treatment (drug-naïve) and those who have continued to show disease activity whilst taking an existing treatment for MS.
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Image: MRI showing lesions on the brain
Credit: Dr Alasdair Coles
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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New MS drug proves effective where others have failed
2 November 2012
Alemtuzumab, a drug previously used to treat a type of leukaemia, shown to help people with early multiple sclerosis who relapsed on previous drugs as well as patients who had not yet been treated.