Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Vancouver, B.C., Canada, announced in February that it would not be continuing development of micellar paclitaxel (also known as Paxceed®) as a possible treatment for secondary progressive MS. The company said the drug, “failed to meet statistical significance” in a double blind, placebo-controlled treatment trial. The study involved 174 people with active secondary progressive MS at seven sites across Canada. Micellar paclitaxel is a reformulated version of the active ingredient in Taxol®‚ a widely used treatment for cancer.

Participants were divided into three study arms: a low dose of micellar paclitaxel, a higher dose of the active treatment, and the placebo. The study treatments were given intravenously once a month for 6 months. All groups were then followed for an additional 3 months.

The primary outcome measure of the study was the difference in new brain lesion activity as measured by MRI and compared a cross all three groups. Other outcome measures were the safety and tolerability of the drug and any changes in progression of disability as measured by standard scales.

Angiotech halted the study when statistical analysis of new brain lesion activity, as measured by MRI, found the active treatment groups did not do better than those in the placebo group. The company said that it would not carry out further development of micellar paclitaxel for the treatment of MS. The treatment was found to be safe and well tolerated. MS Society of Canada

This entry was posted on Monday, July 15th, 2002 at 12:52 pm and is filed under All Articles, Medications, Multiple Sclerosis News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.