Mavenclad Improves Relapsing MS Patients’ Quality of Life, Independent U.K. Study Finds

Merck’s Mavenclad (cladribine) tablets significantly improve quality of life among relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS) patients while reducing the number of relapses, according to new analyses of previously unpublished data from clinical trials assessing the drug.

This new data, published in the Multiple Sclerosis Journal, come just as the European Commission ponders whether to approve the once- rejected therapy to treat relapsing forms of MS. Its decision is expected later this month, seven years after a perceived increased of cancer risk led the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to block Mavenclad.

In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected the medication, forcing its eventual withdrawal from the Australian and Russian markets, where it had already been licensed.

For the study “Positive impact of cladribine on quality of life in people with relapsing multiple sclerosis,” researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) used data obtained from the EMA through a Freedom of Information request.

They analyzed data from the Phase 3 CLARITY trial (NCT00213135), which compared Mavenclad to placebo. The trial’s 1,326 participants completed a quality-of-life questionnaire that focused on disease aspects such as mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain or discomfort, and anxiety.

After two years, those on Mavenclad had significantly improved their quality of life compared to the control group, particularly in terms of self-care. Mavenclad also helped mobility, which might be related to its ability to prevent relapses and delay progression, researchers said.

While researchers assessed quality of life using two different questionnaires, patients had only completed one in sufficient numbers to allow for a solid analysis. The other quality-of-life tool provided researchers with numerically positive results, but the low number of responses made the result difficult to interpret.

This wasn’t the first time QMUL researchers have contributed in this way to knowledge of Mavenclad in MS. In 2015, they used a Freedom of Information request to obtain data showing that Mavenclad was not related to increased cancer risk.

“Cladribine seemed to have such excellent potential as a treatment for MS that we thought it was tragic the development program was shelved, and significant parts of the clinical trial data remained unpublished,” study leader Klaus Schmierer, a neurologist at both QMUL and Barts Health NHS Trust, said in a press release. “In addition to the drug being highly effective, well tolerated and safe as far as short-term studies can show, we now know it also improves patients’ quality of life. The new results seemed so clear, we felt it was extremely important to publish and share these data.”

Mavenclad has now been studied in some 2,700 patients with relapsing MS in the Phase 3 trials CLARITY, CLARITY EXTENSION (NCT00641537) and ORACLE-MS (NCT00725985), as well as the Phase 2 ONWARD trial (NCT00436826), and the ongoing long-term study PREMIERE (NCT01013350).

The treatment differs from most other oral MS therapies in that a short treatment course — a maximum 20 days — triggered effects that were upheld for two years. Studies of Mavenclad’s mechanisms suggest the drug gets such results by resetting the immune system.

In June 2017, the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use urged the European Commission to approve Mavenclad. Merck also plans to seek U.S. approval for its therapy and is now in talks with the FDA about Mavenclad’s future.