(Bloomberg) – Roche Holding AG said its best-selling multiple sclerosis drug, Ocrevus, failed to outperform the original in a large study, potentially reducing drugmakers’ ability to reduce cheap copies.
Roche said Wednesday that doubling or doubling the treatment at 120 weeks, the disease progression is not lower than the current medication. Roche chief medical officer Levi Garraway said the available doses were found to be the best.
The result is a blow to the company’s strategy to extend the profitable life of MS drugs, with analysts expecting sales to be taken out of CHF 7.32 billion (US$8.27 billion) this year. Roche told investors in January that the high-dose version of Ocrevus could become the new standard treatment for MS, a chronically debilitating neurological disease that can lead to muscular weaknesses and numbness and make walking difficult.
Roche has also been trying to attract new patients’ Ocrevus and use a drug that can be given by shooting without the need for injection in a doctor’s office. Roche Pharmaceutical Minister Teresa Graham said in January that the shot should be able to add about 2 billion francs.
Roche declined to comment on when the original version of Ocrevus faces patent expiration and cheap copies. But biosimilar manufacturers are already preparing to compete. Amgen Inc. said it will test a copy of Ocrevus in patients this year, while Celltrion Inc. also registered a competitor study in Europe.
Roche’s high-dose study began in 2020 and follows more than 800 patients with relapsed MS, the most common form of the disease. This year remains the result of a large high-dose glasses study conducted in patients with primary MS, a less common and often more disabling version of the disease with fewer treatment options.
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