Clomipramine, an Antidepressant, Shows Potential in Treating Progressive MS in Early Study

Clomipramine, an approved antidepressant, shows potential in treating people with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS)  — a disease form with few treatments — by protecting nerves from various processes thought to underly progressive MS, early research shows.

The lab and animal study, which focused on already-approved treatments, was titled “Systematic screening of generic drugs for progressive multiple sclerosis identifies clomipramine as a promising therapeutic” and published in the journal Nature Communications.

A variety of therapies exist for people with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), which is marked by exacerbations or flares. But fewer exist for people with progressive MS, and only one, Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), is approved for those with primary progressive disease. Among reasons for this are the markedly different underlying processes underlying these two types of MS.

“The mechanisms causing damage in progressive MS are not always the same as in relapsing-remitting MS. This is why the latter requires different therapeutic approaches,” Simon Faissner, a researchers with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Canada and the study’s first author, said a press release.

Progressive MS involves severe aspects of neurodegeneration, accompanied by iron-mediated neurotoxicity, immune cell activity, and oxidative stress. An effective treatment essentially needs to address all these mechanisms.

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