This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

Dignan,

Instead of laying in bed with the lovely Jimmylegs this Saturday morning (lucky man!) there is some detective work that needs to be undertaken.

Rituxan (which depletes B cells and in my modest view shows real promise as an MS treatment (don't get scared off by the "it might kill you brigade" - we're all going to die of something)) is in trial for PPMS (Phase III) and RRMS (Phase II). Rituxan is a joint effort from Biogen and Genentech.

Some months ago I saw that Genentech was working on a next generation B cell depleting drug, Anti-CD20. I looked on the company's website today and saw that an Anti-CD20 Phase II for RR MS and a Phase III for RR MS are planned. There is mention of some dispute with Biogen (no doubt Harry Z is behind this!)

See link attached. Not sure how this affects your list of treaments?

Ian

http://www.gene.com/gene/pipeline/statu ... anti-cd20/

I'm not clear on this. Are they saying a second generation anti-cd20 drug is something other than rituxan? I don't think they have another b cell therapy that already got to phase III MS trials without us knowing about it, so I think they are referring to rituxan. They mention phase II and III trial for RRMS, but no mention of PPMS. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking it's just a typo. It was supposed to say phase II for RRMS and phase III for PPMS.

Am I way off base?

Dignan,

I think you are right about the typo . But I'm not clear why Genentech are calling Rituxan "2nd Generation Anti-CD20". I always thought that this was a next geration drug which would replace Rituxan. The mystery deepens as the RR Phase II trial finished in August 06, but the results have not been pubished.

Ian

Maybe Genentech's comment about disagreement with Biogen has something to do with reporting on the phase II RRMS trial? It seems like 5 months should be enough time to pull together the results of a phase II trial, so one way or the other, hopefully we hear about it soon.