Associated Press Reporting Lemtrada (campath) Missing a Goal in Trials.

Associated Press, 07.11.11, 11:29 AM EDT 

NEW YORK — French drugmaker Sanofi said Monday that its multiple sclerosis drug candidate Lemtrada did not achieve one of its goals in a late-stage clinical trial.

Sanofi said Lemtrada worked better than an older drug, Rebif, in preventing relapses, as patients treated with Lemtrada were 55 percent less likely to experience a relapse in symptoms. However, the drug did not prevent their multiple sclerosis from becoming disabling, as it had in previous studies.

Sanofi also listed the side-effects as headache, rash, fever, nausea, flushing, hives, and chills, leaving out the deaths reported in the clinical trials.

I also was very wary when I read the study and they were touting the drug as being able to prevent disability outright. It was even reported that it may reverse brain damage from MS. Nothing short of a miracle, right? Or a selling point worthy of $20.1 billion?

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