Ponesimod (ACT-128800) met most of its endpoints in the phase III OPTIMUM trial versus teriflunomide in patients with MS, according to a preliminary announcement. Ponesimod is the latest in a series of sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor drugs, a group that includes fingolimod, siponimod and ozanimod. Somewhat unique is that ponesimod is selective to S1PR-1 and acts as an agonist rather than an antagonist (or functional agonist). Ponesimod has a short half-life (30 hours) and is eliminated in about 1 week (Dash et al. Xenobiotica 2018;48:442-451). The drug was developed by Actelion and will be marketed by Janssen, both of which are owned by Johnson & Johnson. Read More

“Therapeutic inertia” is a term coined over a decade ago to describe the 90% of clinicians who failed to intensify antihypertensive therapy in patients with high blood pressure (Antrade et al. Am J Manag Care 2004l;10(7 Pt 2):481-486). The concept was first applied to multiple sclerosis treatment decision-making three years ago and has become something of a cottage industry ever since, with about a dozen papers and abstracts to date on the topic. Read More

A new head-to-head trial has reported that nonmyeloablative hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation is superior to disease-modifying drugs (DMD) with respect to time to disease progression in patients with highly-active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (Burt et al. JAMA 2019;321:165-174). Read More