Trou­bled Bio­gen shows off its me-bet­ter ap­proach to MS on PhI­II up­date — but is it re­al­ly just a patent play?

Re­searchers at the trou­bled Bio­gen are tout­ing the lat­est safe­ty up­date on a Phase III MS drug now un­der re­view at the FDA. De­signed as a milder drug than its MS star Tec­fidera, the com­pa­ny re­port­ed that there was a dis­con­tin­u­a­tion rate of 0.7% over one year of treat­ment us­ing dirox­imel fu­marate, an oral ther­a­py which they be­lieve will help po­si­tion this on the mar­ket in 2020.

Bio­gen part­nered with Alk­er­mes to get this drug, which is un­like­ly to do a whole lot in terms of re­form­ing the big biotech’s tar­nished R&D rep af­ter the late-stage fail­ure of ad­u­canum­ab. Alk­er­mes — which has had plen­ty of its own R&D prob­lems with the me-bet­ter ap­proach — dubbed this one ALKS 8700, which they plan to sell as Vumer­i­ty.

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