26 - Glatiramer acetate to treat multiple sclerosis

Summary

Glatiramer acetate (GA) seems to affect immune cells in an antigenic specific way, and could be considered as an example of a therapeutic vaccination, as opposed to the prophylactic vaccinations commonly used for infectious diseases. The first human use of GA was in three patients with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and four in the terminal stages of multiple sclerosis (MS). Cross-sectional analysis of data from the extended, open label follow-up of the US trial investigated the consequences of long-term GA treatment on several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) markers of MS activity and disease burden. As GA has unique mechanisms of action, which differs from those of other MS disease therapies, use in combination with other agents might produce additive or synergistic therapeutic effects and better efficacy. The effects of oral GA were extensively studied in both rodents and primates in acute and chronic relapsing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) models.