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Welcome to This Is MS
This is MS is an unbiased, unaffiliated site dedicated to eradicating Multiple Sclerosis. We offer an open-minded approach to *all* potentially viable treatments, ranging from the FDA-approved disease-modifying drugs such as Copaxone to alternative treatments such as Low Dose Naltrexone. Our only purpose is to serve YOU.
Please join us, and welcome to the site.
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 | Research: Oral Therapy Laquinimod to Start Phase III Trials for RRMS |
 The race for an oral multiple sclerosis medication took one further step today, when Teva and Active Biotech announced that they were going to begin the final Phase of clinical testing for their pill candidate, called laquinimod.
This followed the successful conclusion of Phase II, as well as consultations with the US FDA. Drugmakers are cautious...
Story continues, please click "read more"...
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Posted by Administrator on Thursday, June 07 @ 04:45:33 EDT (5323 reads)
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| MS Walking Improvement Drug Gets FDA Help |
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Most of the MS therapies in the drug development pipeline, or even available today, are targeted at reducing relapses and decreasing disability progression.
Which makes Acorda Therapeutics' Fampridine-SR quite interesting. In Phase III trials, it is targeted specifically at one particularly onerous aspect of the MS burden-- impact on walking ability.
Acorda and the United States Food and Drug Administration recently reached an agreement on a pathway to getting Fampridine approved for this indication. In addition to a Phase III trial currently underway, Acorda will work with the FDA's Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) to ensure their trial design proves that individuals treated with Fampridine-SR are significantly more likely to have consistent improvements in their walking than those treated with placebo...
Story continues, please click 'read more'
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Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, May 23 @ 19:09:16 EDT (3986 reads)
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| PML Seen with Rituxan for Lupus |
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Our old nemesis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML, has reared its ugly head yet again, this time in association with another of Biogen's drugs, Rituxan.
PML, if you recall, was implicated in the multiple deaths associated with Tysabri last year, leading to its temporary suspension. After much analysis and an unprecedented patient board hearing by the FDA...
Story continues, please click 'read more'
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Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 20 @ 05:07:09 EST (4097 reads)
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| News: Vitamin D Reduces Risk of Multiple Sclerosis |
 Numerous studies of MS have shown a correlation between disease frequency and geographic location, with the general rule being that as a person gets further away from the equator, their MS risk rises. This has often been reduced to sun exposure, with one of the more obvious implications being that sunlight causes the body to create Vitamin D--25-hydroxyvitamin D-- and therefore Vitamin D just might have a protective affect against MS.
A new study released yesterday provides compelling statistics behind that claim, saying in short that Vitamin D seems to reduce the risk of developing MS in Caucasians.. While the study does not make any claims about people who already have MS benefiting from Vitamin D supplementation...
Story continues, please click 'read more'...
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Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, December 20 @ 04:44:47 EST (4102 reads)
(Read More... | 3253 bytes more | News | Score: 3.77)
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| Opexa Begins Phase IIb Study on Tovaxin |
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Some positive news to share regarding the experimental multiple sclerosis therapy named Tovaxin. Tovaxin is a novel therapy that is individualized to each patient-- white blood cells are taken from the patient, altering them in the lab into a form that when reinjecting into the patient, willl elicit a response from the immune system against other white blood cells that attack myelin.
A new Phase IIb study has launched, intending to enroll 150 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients in a multicenter, placebo-controlled trial. It is a year-long study, where the medication is given (by subcutaneous injection) 5 times, at inception, then month 1, 2, 3 and 6. The primary endpoint is, as typical, the number of T1 enhancing (and thus active) lesions on MRI at various weeks after the final injection. Secondary endpoints include...
story continues... please click 'read more'...
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Posted by Administrator on Wednesday, September 20 @ 13:57:54 EDT (4100 reads)
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| News: Oral Therapy FTY720 (Fingolimod) Shows Promise for MS |
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Novartis announced this week that its experimental once-daily, oral multiple sclerosis therapy, Fingolimod, also known as FTY720, succeeded in its phase II clinical trial.
Fingolimod (which, by the way, wins our award for Most Unintentionally Humorous Drug Name) works by keeping the immune system's T cells in the lymph nodes and away from the central nervous system, which is for reasons yet unknown, vulnerable to attack in an MS patient.
The trial enrolled over 250 patients. In the first six months, patients were randomized to receive either one of two doses of fingolimod, or a placebo. For the following six months, all the placebo patients were randomized to one of the two fingolimod doses.
The results...
Story continues, please click "read more"...
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Posted by Administrator on Saturday, September 16 @ 13:48:18 EDT (7699 reads)
(Read More... | 10664 bytes more | News | Score: 4.61)
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| Rituxan Has Positive Phase II Results |
 Biogen, and a new name in the multiple sclerosis world, Genentech, proudly announced today that their Phase II trial of Rituxan against Relapsing-Remitting MS (RRMS) was considered successful. Rituxan was originally approved as a cancer therapy versus non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. More recently it received approval to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis in combination with methotrexate for patients failing standard therapies.
Rituxan works by depleting B-cells, a type of white blood cell associated with inflammation.
Story continues, please click 'read more'...
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Posted by Administrator on Monday, August 28 @ 18:54:07 EDT (6078 reads)
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| Teva to Examine Neutralizing Antibodies to Interferon |
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In what at first seems like a contradiction, Teva, manufacturer of the multiple sclerosis treatment Copaxone, is now enrolling for a large trial examining so-called Neutralizing Antibodies (NAbs) to high-dose Interferon-beta. Copaxone, or glatiramer acetate, is notable for being the only mainline therapy that is not an interferon (excluding for the time being Tysabri and Novantrone).
NAbs, when present, have been shown to negatively affect the therapeutic value of the interferon drugs, developing in somewhere between 5-45% of patients receiving interferon treatments like Avonex, Betaseron and Rebif. Teva contends that though the impact of the NAbs is gigantic, testing for their presence is not routine.
Story continues, please click "read more"
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Posted by Administrator on Monday, August 21 @ 15:51:48 EDT (3591 reads)
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| Research: Fathers More Likely to Pass MS to Children |
 While the development of multiple sclerosis in a given person remains somewhat of a mystery, consensus opinion is that there is at least one component that is genetically based, with perhaps others including an environmental trigger such as a virus or toxin.
A new study sheds some interesting light on the hereditary aspect of MS development, demonstrating that men with multiple sclerosis "pass" the disease onto their children 2.2 times more often than women. This discovery should perhaps be considered alongside another mysterious gender-based fact-- that Multiple Sclerosis is known to affect approximately two times more women than men.
story continues... please click read more
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Posted by Administrator on Thursday, July 27 @ 04:00:55 EDT (3114 reads)
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| And Then There Were Six (Again) |
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Tysabri has retaken its place alongside Novantrone, Copaxone, Avonex, Betaseron and Rebif as the approved therapies for multiple sclerosis disease modification. Elan and Biogen today announced that Tysabri (natalizumab) is now available for administration in the United States as well as several European countries.
This (hopefully) marks the end of Tysabri's epic and volatile journey from lab to market, and the beginning of patients benefitting from a potent, if controversial, new weapon against multiple sclerosis progression and disability...
story continues, please click 'read more'
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Posted by Administrator on Monday, July 24 @ 04:35:04 EDT (3832 reads)
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| MS and Diabetes Linked |
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A new epidemiological study from Denmark demonstrates that people with Diabetest Type 1 are more then 3 times more likely to also develop multiple sclerosis than people without diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is thought to be an autoimmune disorder, as is MS, although that once sacrosanct assertion becomes more controversial with time. In diabetes, the body attacks cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, a critical component that the body uses to break down sugar. In MS, the body attacks components of the CNS, in particular the myelin sheath that protects neurons, as well as oligodendrocytes, the specialized cells that produce myelin.
Previous connections...
[story continues... please click 'read more'...]
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Posted by Administrator on Thursday, July 13 @ 02:05:14 EDT (3637 reads)
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| News: Tysabri Approved For Return in Europe |
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Following the lead of the United States Food and Drug Administration, the European Commission announced its re-approval of Tysabri as a single therapy for highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. More specifically, it is indicated for patients unresponsive to the CRABs, or for patients with very severe, rapid forms of the disease.
"Today marks an important step forward for the European MS patient community," said James C. Mullen, Chief Executive Officer, Biogen Idec. "TYSABRI represents one of the most significant advances in MS treatment in nearly 10 years and provides patients living with this disabling disease an important new therapeutic choice."
"This decision means that patients in Europe who are suffering from this chronic, debilitating disease now have an effective new treatment alternative," said Kelly Martin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Elan.
Click "read more" for the full press release...
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Posted by Administrator on Thursday, June 29 @ 11:31:47 EDT (2466 reads)
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| Tysabri Price Rises Nearly Twenty Percent |
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With Tysabri's re-approval now secured, and an expected re-launch date in the United States of July 2006, Elan and Biogen announced a significant price hike for the controversial but exciting new therapy.
The wholesale price will be, brace yourself, $2184.62 per vial. One vial entails one treatment, and 13 vials will be needed per year (assuming an infusion every 4 weeks). This yields a total price of $28,400 per year wholesale! For those keeping track, this represents a nearly 21 percent price increase versus the original wholesale price at launch in November of 2004.
"The increase takes account of...
Story continues, please click "read more"
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Posted by Administrator on Friday, June 09 @ 06:42:39 EDT (4961 reads)
(Read More... | 1843 bytes more | Score: 3.33)
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| Old Articles | |
| Monday, June 05 | | · | Tysabri Cleared to Return to Market |
| · | Hope and Heartbreak: The Path of Tysabri as a Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis |
| Thursday, June 01 | | · | Biogen Buys Another Promising MS Drug (BG-12) |
| Friday, May 26 | | · | Early Treatment Favoured for MS |
| Thursday, May 25 | | · | Elan Says Tysabri on Track, Considers Price Hike |
| · | Monthly IV Steroids Could Prevent Relapses |
| Tuesday, May 23 | | · | Possible Method of Action for Copaxone Discovered |
| Monday, May 22 | | · | Keppra (Levetiracetam) shows Promise Against Tremor |
| Friday, May 19 | | · | First Formal Low Dose Naltrexone Study Results to be Presented |
| Wednesday, May 17 | | · | Possible Shift in Thinking about how Multiple Sclerosis Develops |
| Tuesday, May 16 | | · | BioMS expands MBP8298 trial to RRMS patients |
| Thursday, March 30 | | · | Daclizumab Method of Action Surprises Researchers |
| Wednesday, March 22 | | · | FDA Extends Tysabri Review by up to 90 Days |
| Wednesday, March 08 | | · | US FDA PANEL UNANIMOUS: TYSABRI SHOULD RETURN |
| Tuesday, March 07 | | · | First Day of Tysabri AC Meeting Over |
| · | In Progress: Tysabri FDA Advisory Panel Review Meeting |
| Wednesday, March 01 | | · | New Tysabri Results Published in New England Journal of Medicine |
| Tuesday, February 28 | | · | Interesting new Research Abstracts on Tsyabri (Natalizumab) |
| Wednesday, February 15 | | · | Tysabri Cleared for Clinical Trial Use |
| Monday, February 06 | | · | MN-166 Enters Phase II trials in US |
| Tuesday, January 24 | | · | Tysabri to Receive FDA Verdict by end of March |
| Friday, November 18 | | · | FDA grants Priority Review to Tysabri Supplemental Application |
| Monday, November 07 | | · | Component of Turkey (Tryptophan) Promising in MS |
| Monday, October 17 | | · | Tysabri Crohn's and RA Safety Review Complete; No New PML |
| Monday, October 03 | | · | Novartis Oral Therapy FTY-720 Shows Phase II Success |
| Monday, September 26 | | · | Tysabri Supplemental Application Submitted to FDA |
| Tuesday, September 20 | | · | Elan and Biogen Plan Re-Launch of Tysabri |
| · | Stem Cells Repair Cord Damage; Produce Myelin |
| · | Campath Trials Temporarily Halted; Shows Promise |
| · | Long-Term Antibiotic Use Raises Cold and Flu Risk |
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