Tuesday, August 05, 2008

2 PML deaths scare investors, not MS patients or docs

As the WSJ reports, Elan and Biogen shares were hit hard by news of two additional cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) among the 31,800 MS patients on Tysabri. According to the article, though, doctors and patients are "unfazed."

Of course they are. That's because investors can put their money in any of a zillion other places, but an MS patient's available alternatives are pretty limited, especially given that Tysabri is "generally recommended for patients who have not been helped enough by, or cannot tolerate" the interferons, glatiramer, or mitoxantrone.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think both patients and docs are scared, but we can't show it like investors can. because, like you say we have so few options left. The moment another drug comes along better than tysabri *then* we can finally say how cr*p tysabri was, not before!