According to a study in The Lancet medical journal, a drug developed by Acorda Therapeutics Inc. appears to improve walking in people suffering from multiple sclerosis.

 

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, a class of disorders that manifest by the immune system attacking different tissues of the body. In Ms’s case, killer T-cells attack the myelin, which protects the nerve fibres of the central nervous system. As this happens, patients start to experience symptoms as weakness, numbness, incontinence and speech problems.

                                     

The finding is based on a study of 301 US and Canadian adults with multiple sclerosis. They took either fampridine or a placebo twice daily for 14 weeks. At the end of the study, 35 percent of MS patients who previously had difficulty walking increased their walking speed after taking fampridine. Only 8 percent of those taking a placebo increased their walking speed.

 

“We provide evidence that treatment with fampridine produces clinically meaningful improvement in walking ability in some people with multiple sclerosis,” the researchers wrote in The Lancet study. Dr. Andrew Goodman of the University of Rochester Medical Center in New Yorkwas the leader of the study.

 

Currently, there is no drug that can cure multiple sclerosis. Existent therapies can only slow the progression of the disease and prevent relapses, but patients don’t know for sure whether they are working, Goodman said.

 

Acorda already submitted a new drug application for the drug to the FDA on January 30.

 

“The results of this study indicate that fampridine-SR could potentially represent an important new treatment option in managing MS,” Ron Cohen, president and CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, said in a statement.