A Long-Awaited Gateway to Generics for Multiple Sclerosis

For the first time, a generic version of a disease-modifying therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS) has been studied in a phase 3 trial — and it was found to be equivalent in efficacy, safety and tolerability to its brand-name predecessor. That was the upshot of the GATE trial, published recently in JAMA Neurology, which compared a generic form of glatiramer acetate to the costly branded version of the compound, known as Copaxone®.

GATE’s lead author, Jeffrey Cohen, MD, Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment and Research (pictured above), recently fielded questions from Medscape about this novel study as part of a Medscape-Cleveland Clinic editorial collaboration. The resulting Q&A, available here, provides Dr. Cohen’s perspectives on the study’s findings and their implications for enhanced affordability and accessibility of effective therapies for MS.