treating people with relapsing multiple sclerosis, the most common form of MS, compared with other available medicines, the other clinical trial found.
“The data are really quite dramatic,” Hauser said. “They show by MRI that new areas of inflammation in the brain were reduced by 95 percent compared with the current treatment.”
Ocrelizumab, under the brand name Ocrevus, is awaiting approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA had been set to approve the drug, but recently extended its review.
“We’re very hopeful the drug will be available in the spring,” said Dr. Aaron Miller, medical director of Mount Sinai’s Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis in New York City. “I expect it will get widespread use.”Hauser explained that multiple sclerosis occurs when the immune system attacks the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers, which is composed of a fatty substance called myelin.
Ocrelizumab treats MS by depleting the immune cells that produce antibodies to attack the myelin, Hauser said.
Initially, multiple sclerosis features inflammation that crops up as the immune system actively attacks the myelin. In this phase, known as relapsing multiple sclerosis, patients alternate between active MS attacks followed by periods of remission, Hauser noted.
But, after the myelin sheath has been destroyed, some MS patients will settle into a