Genzyme, part of the multinational drug company Sanofi, is halting supplies of the drug alemtuzumab for multiple sclerosis. Currently licensed to treat Leukemia, neurologists have used the drug in these patients "off label" – prescribing it on their own initiative even though it was not licensed for multiple sclerosis – following encouraging results from a large placebo-controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1998. Alemtuzumab, which is given in two courses a year apart, costs markedly less than other drugs for multiple sclerosis to which it is thought to be superior – around £2,500.
Genzyme has now applied for a license for the drug in multiple sclerosis to regulators in Europe and the US and is expected to relaunch it under the trade name, Lemtrada, at what could be many times its current price. In the meantime the company has withdrawn the drug from MS patients' off-label treatment, pending the granting of the licence, on the grounds that "any adverse event outside a clinical trial … may complicate the regulatory process".
That reminds me of the song by Billy Joel, Piano Man... "...Now Paul is a real estate novelist..." It took some creative bullcrap artist to come up with that explanation.