Utah man hopeful about new MS drug

Ask Jim Erdei what he's given up to multiple sclerosis in the three years since his diagnosis, and a shadow crosses his face. "It's affected about everything," he said simply, listing hunting and snowmobiling, even the pleasure of handwashing the car in his driveway.

Then the 54-year-old grocery manager grins at his son Chandler, sitting across from him in a doctor's office in Salt Lake City Thursday, 140 miles from his Salina home.

He's making a little bit of history, believed to be the first Utahn infused with Tysabri, a brand new treatment for MS. The drug was fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration and approved in late November.

MS is a chronic central nervous system disease that affects more than 1 million people worldwide, almost half of them in North America, including Erdei. Symptoms can include vision problems, loss of balance, numbness, difficulty walking and paralysis. Treatment is most effective with early diagnosis, but it's not always easy to diagnose, since it takes different forms in different people.

It has been decades since something brand new came along that showed promise for those with MS, said Dr. John Foley, division chief of neurology at LDS Hospital, who's on the clinical faculty at the University of Utah School of Medicine and is Erdei's neurologist. Interest in the new drug is so high among Utah MS patients that doctors planning a "little informational gathering" at a Salt Lake hotel had to change rooms three times. More than 500 people registered.

"I can't tell you how excited we are about this," said Foley.

It's believed MS has a genetic component and some sort of environmental trigger — perhaps more than one. Many people have a very mild form of the disease and in others progression can be slowed. With treatment, life expectancy is not greatly reduced, though people with severe forms of MS are more susceptible to life-threatening complications like pneumonia. The goal is to prevent the disease from degenerating to a severe form, Foley said.

That's where Tysabri seems to shine.

At the one-year point in phase 3 clinical trials, patients who took Tysabri alone saw a 66 percent reduction in the rate of relapses. The numbers were also impressive when the medication was given along with Avonex (Interferon beta-1a), one of the standard MS treatments.

Tysabri is the first humanized monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of MS.