NEW ORLEANS – Findings last year from the ORATORIO trial showed for the first time that a pharmaceutical agent – ocrelizumab – was effective for slowing the rate of progression in patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, but there is as much to learn from the many failed trials and treatments as from this recent success, according to experts at a meeting held by the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.
“Insofar as we have seen failure after failure in studying progressive MS, we’ve also learned from the studies themselves how best to redesign the studies and how to target the right kind of patients to be able to see a therapeutic effect once that appropriate drug came along,” Dr. John Rinker II said in an interview at the meeting sponsored by the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.
Dr. Rinker of the University of Alabama at Birmingham chaired a session on “the treatment pipeline” in MS, and noted in the interview that the lessons learned from failed trials could potentially be used to “re-look at some of these older drugs that had been failures in the past and, using a different trial methodology, maybe find some success in the future.”