A giant leap in research and interest in progressive multiple sclerosis — from a few people pushing for such work to 2,000 listening to updates on it — a successful first trial in children, and a growing body of potentially safer treatments for relapsing MS were among the highlights of the four-day 7th Joint ECTRIMS-ACTRIMS Meeting that concluded in Paris on Saturday, a National Multiple Sclerosis Society executive said.
The thousands who came to hear presentations by International Progressive MS Alliance-supported scientists “will stick in my memory for the longest time,” said Bruce Bebo, executive vice president for research at the society.
We “probably [had] close to 2,000 people in the room to listen to the talks by our three funded global collaborative network award winners.”
The projects are looking into ways of potentially promoting myelination and “modulating the compartmentalized immune response” seen in progressive MS, along with developing “quick” outcome measures that might make Phase 2 progressive trials both possible and effective, Bebo said. That last one, he added, aims to overcome “one of the biggest obstacles” in progressive disease research.
Progressive MS, which unlike relapsing disease is not necessarily marked by periods of active inflammation, is diagnosed in its primary form (PPMS) in about 15 percent of all MS patients worldwide, while about 65 percent of relapsing patients will go on to develop secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS). The alliance announced three multi-year $6 million awards in September 2016 to support and promote the work.
“I felt very proud … to be in that room [at ECTRIMS] and know I had some small part in helping get that done,” Bebo said, mentioning the role of his team, the National MS Society at large, and MS groups worldwide “have played to focus the attention of the world on that problem.
“It’s the most attention I’ve seen to progressive MS [than] any meeting I’ve been to before,” he added.
Bebo also spotted results announced earlier Saturday for the SPRINT MS Phase 2 study (NCT01982942), showing that MediciNova’s ibudilast “could slow the rate of brain atrophy in people with either primary or secondary progressive MS by 48 percent.”