David Jones, MD, principal medical director of multiple sclerosis at Genentech, highlights how pediatric MS differs from adult-onset disease, with higher relapse rates and unique treatment challenges. He discusses data supporting Ocrevus for young patients and stresses the importance of FDA approval in building confidence among families and payers. For more from David Jones, read our article here.
Transcript
Pediatric MS is different than adult MS. The disease tends to be more aggressive on natural history relapse rate and MRI activity are much higher.
Interestingly, progression is lower, but over the long term, pediatric patients meet disability endpoint sooner than adult-onset MS. So I think it’s really important.
The other challenge is I think we all consider kids little adults, but it’s not necessarily the case. So it’s really important to understand both the efficacy and the safety of medicine in pediatric individuals with MS.
I think the data that we have suggests that Ocrevus could be a very important option for individuals with pediatric multiple sclerosis. Certainly it’s proved, at least in the U.S. in March 2017 for adults with MS.
It has 11 years of safety and efficacy data in that population. It’s good in this population of 187 patients, we didn’t see significant differences in efficacy or safety. So health authorities allowing, I think this will be a very good option for the treatment of pediatric MS in individuals between 10 and 17 years old.
I’m really thrilled to see that this has been studied in MS. I know fingolimod, Gilenya, had been used a lot and certainly it’s a good drug. But it may not be good for everyone.
I know a lot of off-label treatments still occur in pediatric MS. I think it’s very nice from the point of view of confidence, and from the point of view of interacting with payers, that you have the stamp of approval, so to speak, from the FDA or another health authority that increases the confidence for the patients, for the parents and for the payers.
