Sanofi’s Lemtrada Improves Disability Scores in MS Patients

Sanofi (SAN), France’s largest drugmaker, said its experimental medicine Lemtrada led to an improvement in disability scores in patients with multiple sclerosis compared to an older treatment.

Lemtrada, also known as alemtuzumab, slowed the progression of disability versus Merck KGaA (MRK)’s Rebif in a late-stage trial, and scores improved in some patients who were given Lemtrada in the two-year study, suggesting a reversal of disability, Paris- based Sanofi said today in an e-mailed statement.

At two years, 29 percent of patients treated with Lemtrada had experienced a six-month reduction in disability, compared with 13 percent of those treated with Rebif, said Sanofi, which presents full data from the trial at the 2012 American Academy of Neurology meeting in New Orleans today.

The disability data “is big news,” Michael Panzara, Genzyme’s therapeutic area head for multiple sclerosis, immune diseases and neurology, said in a telephone interview today. “Alemtuzumab versus Rebif improves function; that’s unique.”

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