Thousands of NHS patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) in England are to become the first in Europe to benefit from a major roll-out of an immunotherapy pill, after approval from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Current treatments involve regular trips to hospital, drug infusions, frequent injections and extensive monitoring, adding to the burden on patients and healthcare systems, reports The Guardian.
However, the new tablet, cladribine, can be swallowed at home, and needs to be taken only 20 times in the first two years of a four-year cycle.
The regime consists of a maximum of 10 days of treatment in the first year and 10 days in the second; no additional treatment is needed in the next two years.
Patients thinking about having children can also safely conceive in the third and fourth years of the treatment cycle – an important development, as MS is most commonly diagnosed in women in their 20s and 30s.
The NHS in England is the first healthcare system in Europe to widely introduce the drug, cladribine, to patients with active relapsing-remitting MS.
It was previously approved only for patients with more severe, highly active MS but will now be available to many more patients.
Klaus Schmierer, professor of neurology at Queen Mary University and a consultant neurologist at Barts Health NHS trust, said: “This Nice decision gives people with relapsing MS access to a disease-modifying immunotherapy that interferes very little with their daily lives.
“Cladribine’s efficacy and unique dosing regimen will enable people with relapsing MS to maintain their quality of life, being able to largely ‘forget’ about their immunotherapy once the two short treatment-courses have been completed.”
HIV annual jab
Meanwhile, in another medical advance, an early study revealed an annual jab to protect against HIV “shows potential”.
Millions of people globally are at high risk of HIV and take daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) tablets to reduce their risk. But challenges with adherence and persistence have limited their overall effect.
The recent study, presented to the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections found that the yearly injection, lenacapavir, made by Gilead Sciences, was “safe and well tolerated”.
“Yearly dosing of lenacapavir has the potential to further decrease current barriers to PrEP by increasing the uptake of, persistence on, and, therefore, scalability of PrEP,” experts wrote in The Lancet.
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EU-blocked drug found to improve quality of life in MS
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UK’s NHS won’t pay for new multiple sclerosis drug
Gilead in talks with SAHPRA to register twice-yearly anti-HIV jab