Swiss pharma company Roche has released new long-term data that shows 75% of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients treated with Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) had no evidence of disease activity after two years.
The new data comes from the open-label phase 3b CASTING study and the CONFIDENCE real-world safety study, in which Ocrevus was administered to RRMS patients who had experienced a suboptimal response to a prior disease modifying therapy (DMT).
In the CASTING study, patients had prior suboptimal response to at least six months of treatment with up to two DMTs before switching to Ocrevus treatment. Following two years of using Ocrevus twice-yearly, 75% of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients had no evidence of disease activity.
In patients who had taken only one prior DMT, 88% reported no disease activity after two years, compared to 70% of those who had taken two therapies prior to switching to Ocrevus.
Patients treated with Ocrevus also experienced an improvement in the majority of their symptoms, as measured by the SymptoMScreen outcome tool.
The most significant symptom improvements observed in the CASTING study were seen in sensory symptoms, fatigue and vision.
In the CONFIDENCE study, a 97% treatment persistence for Ocrevus patients was observed at 18 months, with strong adherence to infusions every six months, in an interim analysis of over 1,600 in the ongoing Germany-based study.
“For a wide range of people with MS who experienced a suboptimal response to prior treatment, we continue to see evidence that Ocrevus provides significant benefit in slowing disease progression,” said Levi Garraway, chief medical officer and head of global product development at Roche.
“New real-world OCREVUS data shows high persistence and adherence to the only B-cell therapy with a twice-yearly dosing schedule, which we know can be very important to both people with MS and their physicians,” he added.
The MS market has long been dominated by Ocrevus, which is approved for use in both relapsing forms of MS and primary progressive MS, although it is facing biosimilar competition in the US and Europe.
Although Ocrevus sales climbed again for the half year in 2020, Roche reported that the decrease in hospitalisation and outpatient visits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted sales of the MS drug, which is administered by infusion.