Researchers and drug developers have made plenty of headway fighting multiple sclerosis since the first interferon drugs became available in the 1990s. The field hit a new milestone recently with oral drugs reaching the market – the first is Gilenya (fingolimod) from Novartis AG, and others are in Phase III. They aren’t front-line therapies yet, but the hope of drugs that don’t require regular injections or visits to the infusion clinic is shaking up the field, and in some ways re-routing attention to more pressing needs, such as more specific immune treatments that could be safer and more efficacious than current immunosuppressants, and new strategies to combat the advanced form of MS that so far has defied attempts to treat it.
But in this age of shrinking venture commitments to new research, penny-pinching Big Pharma research budgets, and uncertain government support,...
