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A new oral medication to treat patients in the early stages of multiple sclerosis has shown considerable promise in two clinical trials, researchers announced.

The medication is on track to become just the third oral drug available to M.S. patients, and potentially the safest and most effective, experts said. The second oral drug, called Aubagio, was approved just last week.

M.S. was virtually untreatable only two decades ago, but today nine “disease modifying” drugs are available for early-stage patients; a half-dozen more are in the late stages of development. Most patients in the early stage of the disease, a form called relapsing-remitting M.S., take drugs by injection.

The two new studies, published online in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that the drug BG-12, developed by Biogen Idec, reduced relapse rates in patients with relapsing M.S. by about 50 percent. The drug also significantly reduced the frequency of new brain lesions often associated with these attacks, and slowed the progression of disease compared with a placebo.

The studies were Phase 3 trials, a last step on the road to drug approval. The Food and Drug Administration is required to make a decision about the drug’s approval before the end of this year.... Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/1679

My neurologist, Dr Kapoor, is enthusiastic about this drug, indeed he mentions it more than any of the other drugs which have severe side effects. This drug also has very severe but not dangerous side effects in terms of gastro intestinal effects...

I hope that these new drugs really do slow down the progression of the disease because so far no drug has been able to do that. They may reduce the frequency of attacks but even those numbers are suspect.

Remember Biogen initially told us that Tysabri reduced the risk of attack by 67% but now that number has dropped to about 37% over placebo. And the recent study covering several years of data indicated that the original DMD drugs don't have any effect on disease progression over those MS patients who took nothing for the disease.

You would hope one of these days something will work MS.

Harry

Jeez, so Tysabri is dangerous AND ineffective? No hope until the scans can see what's going in vivo...

Still, i don't think BG12, kills so many patients though perhaps that's not such a bad outcome...where's the vintage champagne and cannabis trial?

I've written a breakdown on BG12 and Nrf2 activators on Facebook.


Gibbs is right....BG 12 probably won't kill you. (whoo hoo!) Although it could keep you near the toilet....

There are other researched, natural, less expensive and non-toxic Nrf2 activators--like curcumin, EGCG and silymarin. Also important to note, this drug's primary mechanism of action is going after oxidative stress. It simply does not have a PROVEN mechanism of action in the immune system--although Biogen has hypothesized a few, none have been shown in vivo. http://numedicus.co.uk/blog/?p=266
The Nrf2 activation has been shown in vivo. This is a pretty large paradigm shift. I wrote about oxidative stress, the endothelium and MS four years ago here: http://ccsvi.org/index.php/helping-myse ... ial-health

caveat emptor....
cheer

Cheer,

Biogen has one of the slickest marketing and sales departments I've ever seen. Looking at how they handled Tysabri is a testament to that.

I'm going to predict that Biogen will get BG12 approved for MS use and charge an arm and a leg for it. The efficacy numbers they will produce will have MS patients running to their neuros to get on the drug. Any problems that they have from reluctant docs will be handled with generous honorariums and that will keep the docs happy. Side effect problems will be brushed aside and the drug will make them millions.

I wish I was wrong but I somehow doubt it.

Harry

HarryZ wrote:Side effect problems will be brushed aside and the drug will make them millions.

...and cause chronic depletion of glutathione.
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/chronic-c ... ml#p197021

I fail to understand why no one seems to be discussing this as a potential deleterious side effect. Glutathione is a centrally important antioxidant throughout our bodies. It's also one of the principal detox agents used by the liver.

NHE

Oh well, not such a bad news. Might not be as good as we would like, but maybe a little better than what we have now!

But yes there is a grey cloud, nothing for people with SP or PPMS. Hopefully, that will come too.

Thanks for that info on glutathione modification of BG 12, NHE, sorry I missed that!--what I also found was that raised glutathione levels reduce the effectiveness of BG 12 as an anti-inflammatory http://www.asnneuro.org/an/003/e055/003e055.pdf
Silymarin (milk thistle) is an Nrf2 activator, and it also increases glutathione production in the liver. A much cheaper and safer alternative.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22709784

Sophie--BG12 is not "better than what we have now". We have fresh fruits and vegetables, antioxidant supplements, vitamin D, sunshine, exercise, meditation...all available right now, safer than BG12 and cheaper, too.
take care all,
cheer