From
Minyanville:
Multiple sclerosis took center stage at the 2010 American Academy of Neurology annual conference in Toronto.
One of the biggest draws at the conference was new data from Acorda Therapeutics (ACOR) concerning its recently approved drug
Ampyra. The drug was approved by the FDA on January 22 and is designed to help improve walking for patients with MS.
Ampyra is a new class of drug that isn’t made to slow the progression of MS like the other drugs on the market, but is meant to treat one of its most debilitating symptoms. MS is a degenerative disease caused by the deterioration of the protective coating of nerve cells that affects 400,000 people in the United States and 2.5 million people worldwide. As the nerves around the spinal cord and in the brain become damaged, patients often lose their ability to walk, move certain parts of their body, see properly, or control their attention span, as well as other incapacitating issues.
The data presented on Ampyra at AAN included an extension of two completed phase III studies that showed patients continued to improve their average baseline walking speed over the course of the 2.5-year period. The presentation at the conference also included data from one phase II trial and two phase III trials that showed 37.3% of patients who received Ampyra showed consistent improvement in their walking ability compared to 8.9% of patients who received placebo. The Ampyra-treated patients who responded to the therapy showed an average improvement in walking speed of 25.3%.
“Specialists with whom we spoke noted that patients were coming in requesting Ampyra, and the specialists had all started to write scripts,” wrote Leerink Swann analyst Josh Schimmer concerning his time at the conference. “On average they were in the process of starting roughly 1%-2% of their patients on therapy.”