Comparing Ublituximab and Teriflunomide in Improving Fatigue in MS: Enrique Alvarez, MD, PhD

WATCH TIME: 5 minutes

"Patient-reported outcomes often face challenges because of potential fluctuations, but this study consistently showed significant impact on fatigue, affirming the validity of the findings."

Ublituximab (Briumvi; TG Therapeutics), a recently approved therapy for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), is an agent designed to target a unique epitope on CD20-expressing B-cells. In recent news, post hoc data from the phase 3 ULTIMATE studies (NCT03277261; NCT03277248) showed that treatment with ublituximab resulted in greater improvements in fatigue among patients with MS in comparison with teriflunomide (Aubagio; Sanofi).

The data were presented by lead investigator Enrique Alvarez, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, at the 2023 Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) Annual Meeting, May 31 to June 3, in Aurora, Colorado.¹ Using the Fatigue Impact Scale (FIS), investigators observed significantly greater reductions with ublituximab across all individual time points (week 24: –6.4 vs –3.1; P = .027; week 48: 8.2 vs –4.4; P = .018; week 96: –9.1 vs –4.4; P = .008).

At the meeting, Alvarez sat down in an interview with NeurologyLive® to provide his insights on analysis. He talked about the key findings of the phase 3 studies regarding the impact of ublituximab on MS-related fatigue, as well as how the FIS helps with evaluating the patient-reported outcomes. In addition, Alvarez explained what sets ublituximab apart from teriflunomide in terms of improving the FIS scores among patients with MS.

Click here for more coverage of CMSC 2023.

REFERENCES
1. Alvarez E, Robertson D, Wynn D, et al. Ublituximab is associated with significant improvement in fatigue: results from ULTIMATE 1 and II. Presented at: 2023 CMSC Annual Meeting; May 31-June 3; Aurora, CO. Abstract DMT02.