October 30, 2025 | News | MS Research MS Treatments

New MS research on medications – ECTRIMS 2025

Part 1

The European Committee for Treatment and Research in MS (ECTRIMS) is the largest meeting of the year dedicated to new MS research. This year’s event was held in Barcelona, Spain, and wrapped up at the end of September. Over the next few issues we’ll look at some of the latest developments in MS research. In this issue the focus will be on disease-modifying therapies (DMT) used to treat MS.

Kesimpta now has data for people enrolled in their pivotal studies (called ASCLEPIOS I and II) for up to seven years (Hauser and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;P804). During long-term treatment, over 90% of people no longer have MS relapses or new lesions on their MRI. A separate study (called AGNOS) of people starting treatment with Kesimpta found that almost all (98.9%) were no longer having relapses within 6-18 months of starting treatment and 90% were experiencing no worsening of their disability (Hendin and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;P428).

Two studies looked at women who had taken Ocrevus within six months of becoming pregnant (Bove and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;O102). Only a minimal amount of drug (which is a large molecule) crossed the placenta to the developing fetus and there was no effect on the infant’s immune system in 97% of cases. After one year, infant growth rates were generally normal and most babies were able to mount an appropriate immune response to the usual infant vaccines, such as MMR (measles/mumps/rubella), diphtheria (whooping cough) and pneumonia.

Ocrevus is one of the drugs that targets B cells (which produce antibodies) to reduce inflammation in the brain and spinal cord (the other drugs in this category are Kesimpta, Rituxan and Briumvi). Ocrevus is administered every six months, but recent studies have looked at whether less frequent dosing has an impact on treatment efficacy. An analysis of previous studies (a meta-analysis) found that Ocrevus was just as effective if treatment was delayed 15 weeks or so (taking it every 9-10 months instead of every 6 months) (Cruciani and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;P361). Another option would be to keep the same schedule but lower the dose. This was done with Rituxan without any loss of efficacy (Svenningsson and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;O131).

MS medications primarily reduce inflammation, and this inflammatory response naturally declines with age. This means that treatment will have less of an effect in older people. At the same time, older people face more treatment-related risks because of a higher risk of infections, they often have other illnesses, and they may have greater disability. So the question that has arisen is whether treatment should be stopped in older people. Various studies have looked at this issue and three more studies were presented at ECTRIMS (Carvajal and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;O006. Kerbrat and colleagues. O005. Gutierrez and colleagues. P817). Overall, it appears that for people in their late fifties or early sixties, treatment can be safety stopped without a flare-up of disease activity and no worsening of disability symptoms.

For people concerned about stopping a higher-efficacy treatment, an option is to bridge to a treatment that can be taken less often but which has sustained effects. The preferred choices are often Ocrevus or Kesimpta because stopping is not associated with a ‘rebound effect’ of recurrent disease activity. Another option is Mavenclad, and three new studies have looked at using it as a bridge to discontinuation (Roos and colleagues. ECTRIMS 2025;P322. Katz and colleagues. P332. Valencia and colleagues. P846). The studies found that relapse rates remained low after transitioning to Mavenclad and there was no worsening of disability. An advantage is the dose schedule: two treatment weeks per year for two years, followed by no treatment. So a person in their late fifties can complete the course of therapy knowing the treatment effect will persist into their early sixties.

In the next installment of our ECTRIMS coverage we will look at new MS treatments in development.

Part 2, Part 3

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