Gilenya MS Drug Linked to Patient Death

Multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya has been identified in the case of a patient death last month. According to Bloomberg, drug maker Novartis AG confirmed that the MS patient was taking Gilenya at the time of death.

Gilenya is the first pill approved to treat MS, and the first doses of the drug were administered in the United States last year. According to Novartis spokesman Eric Althoff, this is the first confirmed death of a patient in the first 24 hours of receiving a dose of Gilenya. More than 28,000 patients have taken the drug.

The patient died six hours after taking the first dose of Gilenya, Althoff said. Whether or not the pill played a role in the patient’s death cannot be confirmed. Most experts suspect cardiovascular problems, such as a temporary slowdown in heart rate.

What the death means for Gilenya and Novartis in general is hard to determine, analyst Tim Anderson told investors in a note Monday.

“In the case of MS drugs, there is often significant safety baggage of different sorts,” wrote Anderson, who works for Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. Sudden death “smacks of being cardiovascular in nature,” he added.

Novartis has sent details of the case to the federal Food and Drug Administration, Bloomberg said

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