Multiple Sclerosis Drug which had huge hopes

 An effective new drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis have been developed. Oxford played an important role in developing the new drug. The drug can help people to gain more years from worsening disability. Professor Herman Waldmann, who was known for his early discovery with the antibody drug at Cambridge University brought a significant amount of his research to Oxford while he moved to this university. His team worked on the manufacture of the drug, contributed new informations about its working, and they also investigated its applications in different areas of disease treatment. 

The new drug is called Alemtuzumab and is made by the drug firm Genzyme, which will market the drug under the name Lemtrada. This drug has the potential to make a great difference to patients, specially providing a better quality of life and doesnt have to take treatments contentiously. You may wonder why this much initiation is taken on this drug. Let me show you the current statistics. Almost 2.5 million people worldwide and approximately 100,000 people between the ages 20-40 years in the UK affects with multiple sclerosis. "We are pleased and proud of this outcome. In particular, we have great admiration for the neurology team in Cambridge, with whom we have worked on this project for so many years. Their commitment and focus has been exemplary, and this has been a good example of basic and clinical science collaboration at its best", said Professor Waldmann. He also said that the drug offers people with multiple sclerosis an improvement in their ability to function in their daily lives, a significant slowdown of disease progression and fewer disease relapses. He says "it compares favourably in terms of efficacy to most of the current treatments".  

Alemtuzumab reboots the immune system by first depleting a key class of immune cells, called lymphocytes. The system then repopulated, leading to a modified immune response that no longer attacks myelin and nerves as foreign. But sometimes one third of multiple sclerosis people  patients develop another autoimmune disease after alemtuzumab, mainly targeting the thyroid  gland and more rarely other tissues especially blood platelets. Currently the Cambridge research team is investigating how to identify people who are susceptible to this side effect and seeing whether this side effect can be prevents. 

For more information click onto: Multiple Sclerosis Drug Alemtuzumab