If you go back and look at the trials with the CRAB's you will see that Betaseron, the first approved drug, was trialed randomly on all kinds of MS patients. There was no such classification of RR, PP, SP etc. that existed at that time. Results...about 30% effectiveness over placebo.yeb4432 wrote:I stand corrected you are absolutely right. Me making that statement was not correct, as Tysabri is not and has not been compared against anABCRs. The BEYOND, BENEFIT, and PRISM trials all showed about ewual effectiveness across the ABCR meds. You can easily any of these trials online if you google them. These studies constantly documented the ABCR's effectiveness around 30%.
Along came Avonex and they were able to carefully pick their RR trial patients from the newly established classification scenario. They had to ensure that their results were as good as or better than Betaseron so they would get the coveted Orphan Drug Status rating. Guess what?.....about 30% benefit.
Next came Copaxone. Same idea but the first trial showed such poor results that they didn't reach statistical significance. They ran another trial, dredged the data to the ultimate and barely got to the 30% effective level....and of course got Orphan Drug status.
Not sure about Rebif but the same result of about 30% over placebo.
Seem strange that all 4 drugs rate themselves at about 30% efficacy over placebo?! These results prompted Dr. P.O. Behan's Pathogenesis of MS paper where he stated that a 30% effective rate of these drugs was suspiciously the same as the placebo effect in trials.
Kind of makes you wonder about them, especially when they cost and arm and a leg and their price continues to rise every year!
Harry