Published: April 27, 2012

Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner

NEW ORLEANS — Among patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), little clinical benefit was seen for combining glatiramer acetate (Copaxone) with interferon beta-1a (Avonex) versus either drug alone in a large randomized trial.

Annualized relapse rates during the 3-year study, using a rigorous definition of exacerbation, were 0.12 in the so-called CombiRx trial with a combination of glatiramer acetate and interferon, compared with 0.11 for glatiramer acetate alone (P=0.27) and 0.18 for interferon alone (P=0.02), Fred Lublin, MD, of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York City reported here.

Proportions of patients relapsing during the 3-year study were as follows:

Lublin reported the results Friday at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting. Unlike nearly every other study presented here, no outcomes data were included in the abstract released prior to the meeting.

The combination also failed to outperform the individual drugs in most other outcomes, including rates of disability progression and time to first relapse.

A report from the CombiRx trial earlier in the week focusing on MRI results was largely negative. The combination was better than either drug as monotherapy on a few measures of brain lesion counts and volumes, but for most there was no advantage over the best-performing monotherapy

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