MS patients suffer side-effects after NHS England switches to cheaper drug

[Prot]

Scores of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) have suffered debilitating side-effects after being put on to a cheaper new drug as part of an Only registered and activated users can see links., Click Here To Register... drive to save money.
About 170 MS patients at Charing Cross hospital in London have had complications, including a relapse of their illness, after being switched from Tysabri to a different drug called Tyruko, made by the pharmaceutical company Sandoz.

In a handful of cases, the people affected developed such serious symptoms that they had to be taken to hospital for treatment. Patients have told doctors about side-effects including an inability to use their legs, other mobility problems, fatigue, pain and sudden weight gain.
It is unclear how widespread the adverse reactions to Tyruko are. NHS England said the problem has only been seen at the London hospital. However, one of the patients there claimed to know of people with MS being treated at 15 other hospitals in England who have experienced similar setbacks to their health after being moved on to Tyruko after sometimes years taking Tysabri.

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[agate]

Thank you for finding and posting this, Tim. Tyruko is a recently developed "biosimilar" to Tysabri. The claim is that it is so nearly equivalent to Tysabri that there will be no noticeable differences but there seem to have been some, or at least some people have had adverse reactions since switching. Losing the use of one's legs is no trivial thing.

There is this in the article, though:

But the fact that the patients involved have highly active MS “means their MS may be more difficult to manage, and new symptoms may be a common element of their diagnosis”.

[Virginia]

Thank you Tim. Good to know for those of us who have MS.

[agate]

Isn't it odd that there are now so many MS drugs to choose from, but each one has its problems? Problems with intolerable adverse effects, or with some strange but horrible disorder a person might get (in addition to MS), or problems with whether the drug is even very effective.

The scene is discouraging in spite of the long list of available drugs.

[clouds z]

its like movie -logans run