Multiple Sclerosis Study Started

New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine is the coordinating center for the first study to assess the efficacy of combining two multiple sclerosis drugs.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the medications for initial treatment of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

Sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the study, known as CombiRx, will determine if the combined use of each drug — interferon beta-1a (Avonex) and glatiramer acetate (Copaxone) — reduces relapse rates when compared to either agent alone. Enrollment is underway at clinics across the United States and Canada.

This is a very important trial because, if effective, combination therapy will allow us to take advantage of these agents that have different and complementary mechanisms of action to slow or halt progression of MS, said study chairman, Dr. Fred Lublin, a neurology professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine-Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for Multiple Sclerosis.

Approximately 400,000 Americans suffer from MS, a chronic neurological disease that affects the central nervous system. Relapsing-remitting MS, the most common form of new cases of the disease, is characterized by episodes of attacks of neurological dysfunction, which occur over many years.