Zinbryta Fails to Prevent RRMS from Worsening After Patient Gets Off Tysabri, Case Study Shows

Patricia Inacio, PhD avatar

by Patricia Inacio, PhD |

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Zinbryta (daclizumab) may not be the best follow-up therapy for relapsingā€“remitting multiple sclerosis patients who stop taking Tysabri (natalizumab) for safety reasons, a case study suggests.

An article on the 25-year-old patient’s case, titled ā€œDisease reactivation after switching from natalizumab to daclizumab,ā€ was published in the Journal of Neurology.

Discontining Biogen’s Tysabri leads to many patients’ disease worsening. The question doctors face is what treatment to prescribe after Tysabri. One possibility is Zinbryta.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European UnionĀ approvedĀ it as therapy for active RRMS cases in 2016. Ā Biogen and AbbVieĀ market the monoclonal antibody, which targets the CD25 protein that scientists have linked to MS.

Researchers studied the 25-year-old patient’s case for clues about whether Zinbryta could benefit MS patients who discontinue Tysabri.

Tysabri kept the patient’s RRMS stable for three years. But eventually he contracted a virus that led to a brain infection. Doctors linked his condition, progressive multifocal leucencephalopathy, to Tysabri, and took him off the drug.

Eight weeks later they started him on Zinbryta. But two months into the treatment, he had a debilitating relapse that included walking and eye problems.

The patient had shown no signs that his disease was progressing under Tysabri, but after he started Ā Zinbryta, an MRI scan spotted several new lesions in his brain. These are patches where the myelin sheath that protects nerve cells has deteriorated.

At that point, doctors took him off Zinbryta.

Six weeks later the patient began receiving Sanofi Genzyme’sĀ Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) and intravenous methylprednisolone, a combination that controlled his disease activity.

The key lesson from the case study was that ā€œin some patients, daclizumab might not be sufficient to control disease activity after discontinuing natalizumab treatment,ā€ the research team wrote.

Biogen and AbbVie are conducting a Phase 3 clinical trial (NCT02881567) of Zinbryta’s ability to treat RRMS patients who discontinue Tysabri for safety reasons. The companies are still recruiting participants for the study.