Matt Hoffman

The vice president of US Medical Affairs in Neurology & Immunology at EMD Serono discussed the importance of having long-term and age-matched data on the use of the investigational oral agent in MS.

After showing success in older infants with SMA, risdiplam is now being evaluated in adults—something that’s never been done in a controlled trial of SMA.

The director of the probabilistic vision group and medical imaging lab at McGill University spoke about machine learning’s potential to help physicians predict MS disease progression, treatment effectiveness, and more.

The spinal cord area has shown a strong link to MS disability and can help discriminate progressive and relapsing-remitting disease subtypes, which in turn could help inform individualized treatment plans.

A pair of poster presentations regarding the use of cladribine in multiple sclerosis have shown that No Evidence of Disease Activity-3 status can be sustained up to 4 years, without any new safety signals appearing.

Data have suggested that neurologists treating MS have clearly and persistently deviated from the readily available evidence regarding DMT use, all while costs continue to rise and payers intensify efforts to control them.

A late-breaking poster has suggested that the use of disease-modifying therapy is safe in patients with MS over the age of 65, as well as that disability burden and relapse rates may be lower than believed.

The pediatric critical care medicine attending physician in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia spoke about how physicians can better address brain death in pediatric patients.

Investigators concluded that the findings are suggestive of a link between faster cognitive decline, especially frontal lobe dysfunction, in patients with Parkinson who develop levodopa-induced dyskinesia.

The PDUFA date for the novel oral fumarate has been set for the fourth quarter of 2019. If approved, Biogen plans to commercialize the product under the trade name Vumerity.

The investigators wrote that these findings are suggestive of a superior effect of natalizumab and rituximab compared with fingolimod in suppressing further disease activity in patients with RRMS who switched from interferon or glatiramer acetate due to breakthrough disease.

The findings suggested that a patient’s likelihood of taking medications systematically decreased as the probability of potential AEs occurring increased or the efficacy of treatment decreased.

If approved, eptinezumab, an Alder Biopharmaceuticals product, would become the fourth member of the CGRP class, and the only member available for quarterly infusions.

In a cohort study of 592 patients with MS, the findings were suggestive that real-world escalation approaches may be inadequate to prevent unfavorable long-term outcomes.

The professor of neurology and pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center spoke about the success of the small molecule in older infants with SMA, and about what she’s looking forward to in the future of SMA treatment.

The professor of neurology and pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center spoke about the treatment’s success thus far and its potential to treat infants with more severe disease.

A joint statement from the FDA commissioner and the director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research noted the product is being offered at a variety of establishments as a treatment for conditions for which its benefits are unproven.

MMJ-001 is currently in a dose-ranging trial, with a planned study for spasticity in primary progressive MS. The trial's principal investigator spoke about how it will be assessed.

A new investigation has suggested that the Magnetic Resonance Parkinsonism Index 2.0 can accurately predict the clinical evolution toward a progressive supranuclear palsy-parkinsonism phenotype, differentiating it from Parkinson disease.

The framework consists of 2 documents that expand on the agency’s plans for its risk-based approach for describing drugs, devices, and biologics, including those designated as regenerative medicine advanced therapies.

In addition to tremor-dominant Parkinson disease and essential tremor, focused ultrasound has the potential to be used in a number of conditions, according to the chief of the Neurology Service at the Maryland VA Health Care System.

The professor in the Department of Neurology at Klinikum Wels-Grieskirchen, in Wels, Austria, spoke about the anti-CD20 antibody and its potential to treat patients with MG.

The assistant professor of neurology at Stanford University addressed the possibility that vitamin D’s role on cells within the human immune system could have a therapeutic influence in neuro-metabolic disorders such as ADL.

The professor of neurology and chief of the Neurology Service at the Maryland VA Health Care System spoke about the impact focused ultrasound has had in the treatment of tremor-dominant Parkinson disease.

MMJ International Holdings’ 2 cannabis-derived treatments, MMJ-001 and MMJ-002, were submitted for Fast Track and Orphan Drug designations, respectively, the latter of which was approved by the FDA.

Using BioAscent’s Compound Cloud library, researchers at the ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute identified more than 900 potential candidates, which the institute is now testing in vivo.

The assistant professor of neurology at Stanford University spoke about vitamin D’s biologic role in fuel dependency, energy efficiency, and cell survival within the human immune system.

The authors concluded that when DBS is insufficient to manage motor symptoms, apomorphine, whether alone or in combination with DBS, is a good choice to improve the disease control.

At the final follow-up at an average of 20 months, remission was present in 42.9% of the 56 patients included, and an additional 25% had minimal manifestations or better as measured by the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America-Postintervention Status.

Ultimately, the risk of the composite end point of stroke and myocardial infarction was reduced by 40%, and the risk of stroke alone was reduced by 33%.