Do Pills Produce Compliance?

Trevor Mundel

Negative patient reactions to injectibles may be why Mundel maintains that one of the biggest differentiating factors of Gilenya is the lifestyle change marked by the convenience of an oral treatment. Up until the FDA advisory committee met last June to hear patients' accounts of their experiences with Gilenya, "the skepticism was overwhelming," says Mundel. However, one patient account may have swayed a panel that was still very uncertain about whether the compound was really a breakthrough. A young woman spoke to the committee about her lifestyle with injectible treatments and shared how she would often cry for half an hour before injecting herself. Mundel believes this testimony and others like it swayed the committee in their decision to make Gilenya a first-line, rather than a second-line, treatment because, "they had to ask themselves, 'What do we say to patients like this one if we have to tell them it won't be a first-line treatment, and that they have to continue on like this?'"

Challenges to Market Takeup

While the obvious assumption may be that the convenience of a pill would cause patient adherence to skyrocket, Dr. Burks warns that commonplace oral medications for MS may cause patients to become blasé, or to take the disease and its treatment regimen less seriously. "If this drug works well and the patients' symptoms of MS are very minimal with Gilenya, I'm concerned it will be like patients on blood pressure medication—unless you keep pushing them, they won't take their medication," he says.

"None of these drugs cures a disease—the disease is still there," advises Burks. "So it's going to be up to the physicians, and the medical community in general, to keep reminding people that the reason they feel so good is because they're on the medication. And in fact, the reminder of taking a shot every day is much more powerful than the reminder of taking a pill every day; we have to be very vigilant."

In fact, there seems to be a greater "If it's not broke, don't fix it" mentality springing up among all those involved—patients, physicians, and analysts alike. "Although the majority of the disease-modifying therapies for MS are currently given via an injectible delivery mechanism—which is inconvenient, painful, and requires specialized storage conditions—compliance is quite high, at 80 percent or higher," notes Datamonitor healthcare analyst Trung Huynh. MS patient L. Mello echoes this sentiment when she says, "The medication I am on is working for me. Why chance switching over when I don't know what will happen?"

Science, History, and Safety

Another point of differentiation for Gilenya may be why and how it affects MS. Mundel translates the science into layman's terms for Pharm Exec: "Gilenya effectively blocks a system that the body has in place to control certain white blood cells—lymphocytes, which are trafficking around your body and through the lymph nodes," he explains. These lymphocytes monitor what's going on in the body, assessing potential invaders and problems. In the case of MS, the lymphocytes get out of control in the body and "go wild," participating in the destruction of the myelin sheath that surrounds the nerves of the CNS. Gilenya effectively contains the rogue lymphocytes, keeping them locked in the lymph nodes and preventing them from reaching the CNS, where they could potentially attack this protective covering. This method is unique among MS treatments in that many other medications kill off the lymphocytes, whereas fingolimod merely traps them.