Glatiramer acetate is the active ingredient in a drug that was originally sold as Trade Name Copaxone, which was invented in Israel in the 1970s as a random mix of 4 amino acids. This was given as a 20mg injection daily. As the patent protection expired they gave 40mg three times a week. It didn’t all go to plan as the generics arrived for both doses. However, here we see a different company with a 40mg a month formulation called despot… I mean depot, it has nothing to do with something who excersises power in a cruel or oppressive way, did the job.
For abit of a laugh I once redrew the Association of British Neurologists Coat of Arms to replace the seahorses with two Amphioxuses. These are primate fish-like creatures also known as Lancets.
Now I am sure some of you may wrongly think that it has something to do with the what the spike of a lancet does, but you would be wrong;-).
ABN Coat of Arms
Lancets are animals that have a spinal column but lack a backbone.
So todays post makes me think that this is an International Feature and a feature of the regulators.
It saddens me.
In 2026 how do we have a phase III trial in relapsing MS with a placebo control?. There were 112 different sites giving people placebo for 52 weeks from Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova, Bulgaria, Estonia, Bosnia unsurprisingly Israel (where the manufacturer resides, and 11 sites in the USA. That amounted to n=508 people recieving a treatment that would be anticipated to be not high efficacy. Have a read. Maybe we celebrate that we can cut use of glatiramer down to thirteen injections a year veresus 365. It would be a big improvement. Simply show it is now no worse than currently available glatiramer acetate and 1000 vs 500 people who want glatiramer acetate get it. But 500 people on nothing for a year?
Miller A, Cohen JA, Karni A, Popper L, Bleich Kimelman N, Rubnov S, Danon U, Marom E, Boyko A, Zivadinov R, Berger JR, Bar-Or A, Kolb H. GA Depot, a long-acting glatiramer acetate, vs placebo in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis: A randomized phase 3 clinical trial. Mult Scler. 2026 Feb;32(2):202-213. doi: 10.1177/13524585251405101.
Background: GA Depot is a long-acting glatiramer acetate (GA)-based formulation designed to provide significantly extended dosing intervals compared to currently available GA formulations.
Objective: To assess GA Depot efficacy, safety, and tolerability compared to placebo in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS).
Methods: A 52-week multi-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial in RMS. Patients aged 18-55 with an Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score ⩽ 5.5 were enrolled and randomized (1:1) to intramuscular (IM) GA Depot 40 mg or matching placebo every 4 weeks. The primary endpoint was annualized relapse rate (ARR) at 52 weeks.
Results: A total of 1016 patients were treated with GA Depot (n = 508) or placebo (n = 508). Adjusted ARR was lower in patients treated with GA Depot compared to placebo (0.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.14 to 0.3 vs 0.26, 95% CI = 0.21 to 0.32, 30.1% relative risk reduction, p = 0.0066). GA Depot significantly reduced the number of contrast-enhancing lesions (p = 0.0083). The most common adverse events were injection site reactions (46.1% with GA Depot vs 28.7% with placebo), primarily mild and self-limited.
Conclusion: GA Depot effectively reduced clinical and radiological activity compared to placebo in RMS patients, recapitulating the favorable profile of subcutaneous GA products with significantly less frequent injections.
So how many people had to have a attack just to show that something that the neuros must have had a good idea would be worse that current high efficacy treatment, but people were convinced to go into the trials. Maybe people convinced themselves that the once a month would be better than once a day. Maybe its just me but what do you think?
These are only thoughts and it is maybe me being naive.
If you read it look at the conflicts relating to Mapi Pharma there are embedded in the list of conflicts.
Disclaimer: My thoughts
Source: multiple-sclerosis-research.org