This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

Biogen recently purchased a biotech company that was doing research on PML. I think I read about this here, but cannot find the name of the company.

It seems really odd to me that Biogen has now had two of their drugs, Tysarbi and Rituxin, linked to PML and they just recently happened to buy a company researching PML.

Who wants to be a lab rat for their next product? Not me.

gwa

The name of the company is Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge.




And some people wonder why I don't trust Biogen

Harry

Me thinks lowering the immune system is not a wise idea. May indicate that MS is NOT an autoimmune problem after all.

I think the risks of PML are too high/too unknown for me to dabble just yet.......but if the MS ups the stakes (not an invitation) I could get desperate enough.
But if it's not autoimmune Chris, what is it? Curious to hear...........

There is no concensus as to whether MS is autoimmune or not. Much progress is being made in MS research and I expect better treatments and knowledge within a short time frame.

PMFJI but the autoimmune theory, which has been the absolute main focus of the MS research community for decades, has brought us what results? Add this to the exclusive EAE mouse and after all this time we have neither a cause and certainly nothing remotely close to a cure.

The drug companies continue to develop very expensive, long term use immune system altering drugs that have been used as a treatment for cancer and then migrate over to MS. The latest have been the monoclonal antibody group and we all know what we are starting to see in this area.

In the past couple of years researchers such as Drs. Barrett and Prineas, through autopsy results on the brain, have discovered severe lesion activity without any indication that the immune system has been involved at all . The frustration in this is that nobody knows what may be causing this damage. The good news is that more and more researchers are starting to look into other areas...something which should have begun years ago.

Hopefully there will be some new answers to MS instead of the many unanswered questions that pile up year after year.

Harry

MS could be originating in a few specific cells followed by neurodegeneration and demyelination in the area and some cell death. Within those processes, some autoantigens could be generated. It is only later that the immune system reacts. That's my opinion.
A better mouse model of MS might be the Quaking and Jimpy mouse strains which both have progressive neurodegeneration, without having to inject them. I don't believe they have an autoimmune reaction to the neurodegeneration. Seems to me that other mouse models where you have to induce the MS-like symptoms by injecting the mice with adjuvants, toxins, irritants, etc. and then try to cure them of their reaction are not really valid in modeling a disease (MS) where there is some underlying susceptibility and perhaps many triggers (heavy metals, EBV, etc.).

Wesley

Wonderfulworld--I grow more and more convinced every day it is bacterial.