Clinical trials for progressive MS

For a long time, there were very few opportunities for people with primary or secondary progressive MS to take part in clinical trials. But things are changing. Now, new treatments for progressive MS are continually being ushered along the treatment pipeline.

Octopus - repurposing drugs to protect nerves from damage

To slow or stop progression in MS we need to find ways to protect nerves from damage.

Octopus is our trial for people with secondary and primary progressive MS. It’s taking a bold new approach, testing multiple treatments at the same time, faster than traditional trials. It’s currently testing two drugs already used in other conditions.

Octopus recently completed its first stage of recruitment. It’s now moved to the next stage where we hope up to 1500 more people with progressive MS will join at hospitals around the UK.

Find out more about Octopus including how to register your interest

New immune drugs to hit the right spot

There are lots of disease modifying therapies (DMTs) that do a good job of stopping relapses. They work by stopping the immune system attacking myelin.

But there’s only a couple licensed for people with progressive MS (ocrelizumab and siponimod). And they don't target the type of inflammation that slowly drives progression.

Pharmaceutical companies are testing new types of immune drugs in trials, that can get into the brain and spinal cord, and work more precisely on the cells causing inflammation.

FREVIVA - a precision immune blocker

FREVIVA is a trial for people with secondary progressive MS who aren’t experiencing relapses. It’s testing whether an experimental drug called frexalimab can slow disability progression.

Frexalimab works by blocking a signal that immune cells use to talk to each other, which can lead to inflammation. It doesn’t destroy immune cells, which could mean a lower risk of infections, and better long-term safety than some existing DMTs.

Find out more about the frexalimab trial for secondary progressive MS

BTK inhibitors – getting into the brain

BTK inhibitors are another type of experimental treatment being developed for relapsing, secondary and primary progressive MS.

Promising phase 3 trial results have recently been published showing a BTK inhibitor called tolebrutinib can slow down progression in non-active secondary progressive MS. And now, the ongoing phase 3 PERSEUS trial hopes to confirm whether it can also slow progression for people with primary progressive MS.

Fenebrutinib is another BTK inhibitor. The FENTREPID trial is testing whether it can slow progression in primary progressive MS.

Find out more about the PERSEUS trial for primary progressive MS

Find out more about the FENTREPID trial for primary progressive MS

CAR-T therapy

CAR-T stands for chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy. It’s currently used to treat some cancers.

In CAR-T therapy, doctors collect T cells (a type of immune cell) from your blood and reprogramme them in the lab to find and kill specific cells, like cancer cells. Next, they reintroduce them into the same person. The cells now attack whatever the researchers have modified them to recognise.

In MS, researchers are trying to use the approach to target B cells – another type of immune cell that can cause damage in MS.

A small, early trial is testing whether this type of therapy is safe for people with relapsing, primary and secondary progressive MS.

Read more about the trial and which hospitals are recruiting participants in the UK

What about myelin repair?

At the moment in the UK, potential myelin repair treatments are being tested in people with relapsing MS. But finding treatments that can repair myelin is likely to play an important role in stopping progression for everyone with MS in the future.

Read about our myelin repair trial

Interested in taking part?

All studies have eligibility criteria, so they won’t be right for everyone. If you’d like to know more about taking part in clinical trials and other types of MS research, have a look at our Be in a Study webpage.