Today from Irish stockbroker Goodbody's. Looks like they think T sales still increasing despite pml cases.
Elan (Add, Closing Price $11.17); Tysabri slows disability progression and sustains improvement in physical disability in MS patients.
Analyst: Ian Hunter T +353-1-6410498 E ian.g.hunter@goodbody.ie
Having indicated on Thursday that Tysabri patient numbers have increased over Q208 despite the two cases of PML reported in late July, late Friday, Biogen Idec and Elan reported that in a new post-hoc analysis of the pivotal Phase III AFFIRM study, Tysabri demonstrates sustained improvement in functional outcomes in MS patients. The data were presented in a poster at the World Congress on Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis held in Montreal last week. They support earlier findings that Tysabri was associated with an improvement in the quality of life of patients, as well as anecdotal evidence of recovery of function in some patients taking Tysabri. These data confirm that Tysabri not only slows progression of MS, as do other therapies, but also give a sustained improvement
of function. During the AFFIRM trial, improvements in physical disability were measured using the most used Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and the post-hoc analysis showed that patients with a baseline EDSS score equal to or greater than 2.0, had a 29.6% probability of achieving sustained improvement compared with 18.7% of patients on placebo, over a two years period. These data give further evidence of the efficacy of Tysabri, one factor that never has been questioned since the release of both Phase II and Phase III data. We now await a quantitative outcome on Q308 end patient numbers after the qualitative statement last week that they are higher than Q208. Q308 results for both Elan and Biogen Idec are due out in the last week of October, when we are looking for c.36,350 patients on the drug, up from 31,200 in Q208.
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