Acorda Therapeutics registered positive results from a late-stage trial of a new drug under review for approval to treat multiple sclerosis. Researchers said that slightly more than a third of the patients taking fampridine were able to walk faster over the 14-week course of the study, compared to only 8 percent of the volunteers taking a placebo.
Those results are likely to help Acorda win approval for the drug, which reportedly is being pursued by Biogen Idec. The developer filed for marketing approval last month. A regulatory win for this therapy would prove a big assist for Acorda, which has yet to attain profitability. Acorda CEO Ron Cohen says that the therapy could sell for $5,000 to $10,000 a year.
News reports earlier this week noted that Biogen Idec--a big player in the MS market--has indicated that it is interested in either buying Acorda outright or acquiring the rights to fampridine.
"This study indicates that fampridine could represent an important new way to treat multiple sclerosis and perhaps become the first drug to improve certain symptoms of the disease," says neurologist Andrew Goodman, M.D., chief of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center and lead author of the study.
The New York Times' Ron Pollack, though, notes that not all experts have been won over by the drug's potential. "It's a little hard to tell what the overall clinical impact will be," says Nicholas LaRocca, a vice president of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
- see Acorda's release
- read the story in the New York Times