Amgen’s Uplizna (inebilizumab) has been shown to improve pain and quality of life (QoL) in attack-free neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) patients, according to new data presented at this year’s European Academy of Neurology congress.
Estimated to affect approximately 6,000 adults in the US, NMOSD is a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the optic nerve, spinal cord, brain and brainstem.
The majority of patients experience unpredictable relapses characterised by a new onset of neurologic symptoms or worsening of existing neurologic symptoms.
Administered as an intravenous infusion, Uplizna is a CD19-targeted therapy that is already approved in the US, Europe and other markets to treat NMOSD in adults who are AQP4-IgG positive.
Previous analyses from the N-MOmentum clinical trial, which had a six-month randomised control period and an open-label extension period of at least two years, demonstrated year-over-year improvements in pain and QoL in patients treated with Uplizna.
A new evaluation was conducted in 95 patients who were attack-free with at least three years of Uplizna treatment to determine improvements in non-attack related pain and QoL.
At baseline, 38% had an abnormal QoL score, with 89% of these patients reporting increased pain and 50% reporting significant disability. Results showed that after three years of Uplizna treatment, QoL scores improved in 89% of attack-free patients with an abnormal baseline QoL score.
Of the 39% of patients with abnormal pain scores at baseline, 78% reported improvements after three years of Uplizna treatment.
Improvements in pain scores were also seen in those with normal baseline scores after three years, and improvements in disability from baseline to three years were observed in 44% of patients.
The results come just a few weeks after Amgen announced positive topline results from a late-stage trial evaluating Uplizna in immunoglobulin G4-related disease (IgG4-RD), a rare and progressive fibroinflammatory disease estimated to affect one to five per 100,000 people.
Principal investigator, John Stone, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, described the data as a “major milestone for the IgG4-RD community”, adding that it provides “substantial insight into not only how [Uplizna] can help manage IgG4-RD but also key insights into the nature of [the] condition”.