MS Research Roundup: April 23, 2014
Human Versus Mouse Microglia; Teva Suffers Setback in Generic Copaxone Fight; Motley Fool Loves Biogen Idec
MS Research Roundup collects items of interest to multiple sclerosis researchers from around the Web. Send us your tips: tips@msdiscovery.org.
Human Versus Mouse Microglia
Like MS itself, the brain’s immune cells straddle the fields of immunology and neuroscience—but scientists are debating how well microglia findings from mice translate to people, science writer Virginia Hughes reports. Microglia have enjoyed newfound popularity, thanks to studies linking them to developmental disorders, plasticity in the healthy brain, and neurodegenerative diseases, including MS. Most of the studies rely on laboratory mice, pointed out New Zealand neuroscientists Amy Smith, Ph.D., and Mike Dragunow, Ph.D., of the University of Auckland in the March 2014 Trends in Neuroscience. The combination of 65 million years of evolutionary divergence and the “hot-spot” susceptibility of the immune system to evolve faster create a translational divide that requires human cells and model systems, they wrote. Practically speaking, human tissue has its own issues, including expense and variability, countered neuroscientists Linda Watkins, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado at Boulder and Mark Hutchinson, Ph.D., of the University of Adelaide in Australia in the April issue of the same journal. Human evidence ultimately trumps mouse studies, but there are some things you can’t discover in people. For example, check out these two-photon microscopy movies of "resting" microglia actively surveying their microenvironments by extending and retracting mobile processes like so many arms and legs (National Geographic Phenomena blog, Nature News)
Teva Suffers Setback in Generic Copaxone Fight
Last week, a U.S. Supreme Court justice rejected the bid by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to block generic versions of its MS best-seller, Copaxone (glatiramer acetate), while the court hears the Israel-based company’s appeal in a patent clash in its 2014 term beginning in October. The decision could help pave the way for generic competitors of Teva's Copaxone drug to go on the market as soon as next month—if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives its OK. Meanwhile, on the other side of another legal patent battle, Teva will be able to release its generic version of Celebrex in the U.S. by year's end under a settlement its U.S. subsidiary has agreed to in a patent dispute with Pfizer. (Bloomberg News, Reuters, Wall Street Journal)
Motley Fool Loves Biogen Idec
Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) is not the first drug to exceed $1 billion in sales in its first year, but the blockbuster has helped Biogen Idec beat revenue estimates. In a love letter to the company, The Motley Fool noted the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company’s extensive MS portfolio of four FDA approved drugs, with one longer-lasting version under FDA review and a new compound in phase 2 clinical testing. For the record, numbers one and two are, in order, two drugs for chronic hepatitis, Sovaldi (daclatasvir and sofosbuvir, Gilead Sciences), topping $2 billion in its first quarter on the market, and Incivek (telaprevir, Vertex Pharmaceuticals). (Boston Business Journal, FiercePharma, The Motley Fool) (With reporting from Linda Felaco)