A new drug, called Ocrelizumab, launched by Roche could prove to be a revolutionary treatment for multiple sclerosis, Nature World Report reports.
The drug has been tested in three separate late stage trials and has shown promise.
Since scientists have never been able to pinpoint a clear cause of multiple sclerosis, the treatments till now have been limited.
Up till now, a drug called Rebif has been considered the most effective treatment for multiple sclerosis. However, even though Rebif has proved to be effective against regular cases of multiple sclerosis, it has proven to be ineffective against primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS), which affects roughly 15 percent of MS patients.
Ocrelizumab has proven to be very effective at both treating the disease and slowing its progression.
For the trials, researchers followed 732 patients suffering from the less common but extremely serious primary progressive multiple sclerosis.
Ocrelizumab has also proved to be effective at preventing a relapse of MS. The trials indicate that the drug delivers a 46% and 47% reduction in relapse rates (annualised). Patients witnessed a 24 percent decrease in disease progression over 12 weeks, and 25 percent decrease over 24 weeks.
In two of the trials, 1,656 patients with recurring multiple sclerosis were followed and Ocrelizumab proved to be more effective at treating MS than existing treatments.
