Johns Hopkins (see below) have helpfully provided a world map of Coronavirus COVID-19 cases real-time () – join the dots… Despite the UN refusing to call it a PANDEMIC (defined as an epidemic occurring worldwide), scientists and health professionals agree it is just this. This concept of pandemic pandemonium caused by viruses is not new; in fact the record for the most number of...
The secret to drug approval
Each generation is built on trends. Different in it’s uniqueness, like a manifesto set apart from the one before. Popular trends only need to be mentioned once or twice before the herd mentality takes over. Like fashion, cars and the financial world, the scientific world is also susceptible to the whims of trends. So here is a piece of research announcing how trends have influenced FDA (US...
MAKING ONCOLOGISING MS A REALITY
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer N/A Yesterday’s PMSA meeting was very interesting. It is clear the field of MS is at a cross-roads and that Pharma needs the wider MS community to help them change the game. If we don’t I suspect we won’t see the next generation of treatments being developed to target the ‘real MS’ or ‘smouldering disease’. It was clear...
Oncologising MS
We have been beating the combination-therapy drum for so long now we have become bored with the concept. Every time we apply for grants to test the concept, be it with pharma or via other traditional funding routes, we get pushback. Either our targets are questioned or the concept of combination therapies is challenged based on the scientific principles underlying the combination being proposed...
Curing MS
How close are we to offering some people with MS a cure? I am speaking at the Imperial College Neuroscience Society this morning on ‘how close we are to curing MS’. I think we are very close; in fact some of the longterm follow-up data of IRT (immune reconstitution therapies), in particular, alemtuzumab, non-myeloablative HSCT and myeloablative HSCT looks very promising. I suspect...
Cost effectiveness of cladribine vs fingolimod in Portugal
Firstly, this is not about money (I say this without a tell as my accountant taps away at their calculator nonchalantly). Really, this concept of cost-effectiveness is only obtrusive if you dislike politicking in any form or kind, or you’re British. The easiest way to understand cost-effectiveness models in healthcare in my view is to understand the principles of bartering. In bartering...
Pathways to Cures
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer ★★★★★ I am en route to a ‘Pathways to Cures’ meeting in Washington DC hosted by the National MS Society. The aim of the meeting is to refine the ‘Stop, Restore, and End Pathways’ for MS and to develop an international consensus on what an MS cure looks like. I am honoured to be invited to participate in this meeting and would like to thank the NMSS for inviting me. ...
How healthy is your lifestyle?
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer ★★★★★ It is a no-brainer. A healthy lifestyle is one of the most effective preventive health interventions available. The study below shows that you can increase your chances, by a factor of over 20, of a life expectancy free of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer at age 50 by making ensuring you maintain 4 or 5 low-risk lifestyle factors; i.e. not...
As the New Year dawns, a look back @ Barts neurofilament service
Back in 2015 there was a great need to prognosticate in MS, predict high risk subjects from low risk, and select appropriate treatments based on disease activity in MS. We envisaged back then that the neurofilament test (a neuronal protein that is released during damage) would be a robust marker for risk-stratification in MS, and introduced into our clinical practice at Barts, instead of it being...
What is advanced MS?
Barts-MS rose-tinted-odometer – zero stars Someone recently asked what is advanced MS? I suspect they have been getting frustrated with our use of this adjective without a clearer understanding of what it really means. To find out if you have advanced MS you need to put yourself through a battery of stress tests to find-out much reserve you have left to deal with MS and life in the future...