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/
DIGNAN! 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?
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
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