The world’s first multi-arm, multi-stage (MAMS) platform trial for progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), Octopus, has opened a new site at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
The Welsh site is one of up to 30 other sites set to open around the UK.
Estimated to affect over 130,000 people in the UK, including 5,600 people in Wales, MS is a disabling neurological disease that disrupts communication between the brain and body.
Shelley Elgin, country director at MS Society Cymru, said: “We’re delighted to see the Octopus trial site opening in Cardiff.
“There are thousands with progressive forms who have nothing to stop their MS getting worse. We won’t stop until we have treatments that transform the lives of everyone with MS.”
Launched in April 2023 and funded by the UK’s MS Society, the Octopus trial is led by researchers at the Queen Square MS Centre and MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London (UCL).
Designed to allow multiple drugs to be tested at the same time using a single control group, the trial uses MRI scans to give an early indication as to whether a drug may or may not be effective before disability effects set in.
Currently, the trial is testing two drugs, metformin, which is approved for diabetes in the UK, and alpha lipoic acid, which is approved for neuropathy – a type of nerve damage – in Germany. Both drugs have shown potential to help protect nerves.
Octopus, which aims to enrol a minimum of 1,200 people with progressive MS across the next six years, has also recruited its first participant to the new site in Cardiff.
Dr Emma Tallantyre, Octopus recruitment lead and principal investigator at the University Hospital of Wales, said: “Octopus is a landmark trial, one of the first of its kind in MS… This is such an exciting opportunity for people… who currently have no or limited treatment options to have something that could be disease modifying.”
Anyone in the UK living with primary or secondary progressive MS can register their interest through the UK MS Register.