Ocrelizumab Serves as a "Foot in the Door" for PPMS Treatment

The clinical trial results of ocrelizumab were not "blockbuster," Clyde Markowitz, MD, said. But that doesn't make them any more important towards more efficient multiple sclerosis (MS) care.

The drug, approved this year by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was the first approved treatment for primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) and could therefore open the door for better and better treatment.

Markowitz, the director of the MS Center at the University of Pennsylvania, noted at the annual Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) that ocrelizumab is essentially by default "better than anything else we've tested to date" for this particular form of MS.

"We feel this is really a first foot in the door in this progressive phase," Markowitz said.

Between giving lectures on the roles of gender and testosterone in MS at CMSC, Markowitz took some time to detail the benefits of ocrelizumab results, what treatment may follow in its path towards progressive MS care, and what more needs to be learned in the diagnostic phases.