Teva's COPAXONE holds promise for relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NASDAQ: TEVA) today presented data that demonstrated patients treated for 10 and 15 years with COPAXONE^® (glatiramer acetate injection) had significant reduction in disease severity. These data, generated from the longest continuous prospective study of any disease modifying therapy in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), were presented today at the 25^th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) in Düsseldorf, Germany.

The long-term analysis utilized the universal MS Severity Score (MSSS) to evaluate the accumulation of disease severity in long-term COPAXONE^® patients actively on therapy and those who withdrew early from the 15 year ongoing COPAXONE^® clinical trial¹. Results demonstrated that 51 percent of long-term COPAXONE^® treated patients shifted to lower severity grades (p<0.0001). In contrast, 41 percent of patients who withdrew from COPAXONE^® showed a deterioration in MSSS grades, when compared to their baseline severity grades. Patients remaining on long-term treatment (treatment exposures of 10.12±1.32 years and 13.6±1.3 years), had improved median MSSS scores of 1.84 and 1.69 at 10 and 15 years, compared to MSSS scores at start, 3.62 and 3.50, respectively. Median MSSS score for withdrawn patients worsened to 6.01 at long-term follow-up versus 4.30 at treatment initiation.

“This study, along with other MSSS studies, is paving the way to enable neurologists to predict the progression of disease severity in MS patients,” said Joseph Herbert, M.D., associate professor, NYU Department of Neurology and principal investigator of the study. “The demonstrated positive impact of long-term COPAXONE^® treatment on slowing disease progression provides hope to MS patients and further emphasizes the importance of early treatment initiation.”