No­var­tis shows a hole card in a high-stakes PhI­II pok­er game for MS drugs

No­var­tis float­ed a new, pos­i­tive da­ta point from its re­cent­ly com­plet­ed Phase III study of sipon­i­mod (BAF312), an S1P re­cep­tor drug that is be­ing ad­vanced for sec­ondary pro­gres­sive mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (SPMS).

In­ves­ti­ga­tors for the phar­ma gi­ant turned up at the an­nu­al meet­ing of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mit­tee for Treat­ment and Re­search in Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis to say that they tracked a 21% re­duc­tion in the risk of dis­abil­i­ty pro­gres­sion in the drug arm, com­par­ing it to the place­bo group. They al­so mapped a “sig­nif­i­cant” im­prove­ment in pa­tients’ an­nu­al­ized re­lapse rate but failed to see the da­ta pan out for an im­prove­ment in a 25-foot walk­ing test, a clas­sic way to check for im­prove­ments in phys­i­cal func­tion.

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