Multiple Sclerosis

Population-level judgements on the value of therapies to treat multiple sclerosis don’t adequately depict the differences between how providers and payers view value compared with patients and how patients view value different from one another.

A new treatment option using stem cell transplants was shown to induce sustained remission of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). More than two-thirds of participants had no signs of progression of disability, relapse of MS symptoms, or new brain lesions after 5 years.

A review of 15 disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for the treatment of relapsing-remitting and primary-progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) has found that prices for most of these drugs are not well-aligned with added value for patients.

David Hafler, MD, chairman of the Department of Neurology at the Yale School of Medicine, spoke of exciting times in the field of genome-wide association study-specifically speaking to neurology, genetics, the environment, and the autoimmune response.

A review of our peer-reviewed research in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Availability of multiple sclerosis (MS) therapies provides substantial value to the currently healthy (who may contract MS in the future), particularly when treatment is fully covered by insurance.

Medicare beneficiaries still face huge out-of-pocket expenses because of uncapped cost sharing in the catastrophic coverage phase. This is especially true for beneficiaries who take specialty drugs.

Researchers in Germany have discovered that mitoxantrone-used to treat aggressive, relapsing, or progressive multiple sclerosis-can increase the risk of leukemia and colorectal cancer in those being treated.

Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, senior clinical consultant of emerging therapies at Express Scripts, outlined the 2 pipeline drugs she is keeping a close eye on in 2016: both are breakthrough therapies and one could have a significant impact on the market.

This case study from the MS Center of Saint Louis examines how patients are impacted by high healthcare costs and addresses potential solutions to this problem.

The authors review published evidence regarding associations between high cost sharing for specialty pharmaceuticals indicated for rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and cancer, and their utilization.

After months of anticipation, the FDA has approved a generic version of Copaxone, which means Momenta Pharmaceuticals and Sandoz can now sell a knockoff of a drug that generated more than $3.1 billion in sales in the US last year.

Paul Wicks, PhD, vice president of innovation at PatientsLikeMe, discussed the benefits of using technology in multiple sclerosis research by patients, providers, researchers, and other decision-makers.

Despite the benefit of having more choices than ever before to treat patients with multiple sclerosis, the abundance of options has led to more complexity, according to speakers at the 2014 ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Joint Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

As a medium, the Internet neither helps nor harms in multiple sclerosis care - what matters is how clinicians and patients engage in that medium, according to Paul Wicks, PhD, vice president of innovation at PatientsLikeMe.

At this year's ECTRIMS conference in Boston, Alasdair Coles, MD, University of Cambridge, discussed alemtuzumab and its effectiveness in treating multiple sclerosis.

The second year of the extension study of Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) for multiple sclerosis reported positive interim results with 70% of patients not requiring a third course of treatment.