Israeli scientists identify: Genes that affect responses of multiple sclerosis patients t...( A group of Israeli scientists from t...)

A group of Israeli scientists from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, the Weizmann Institute of Science and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries have recently identified genes responsible for the positive response of many multiple sclerosis patients to the drug Copaxone®. These findings may contribute to the development of personalized medicine for multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Copaxone® was the first original Israeli drug to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is today marketed in over 40 countries worldwide, including the U.S.A., Europe, Australia, Latin America and Israel.

The drug molecule was the fruit of research by Prof. Michael Sela, Prof. Ruth Arnon and Dr. Dvora Teitelbaum of the Weizmann Institutes Immunology Department. It was developed for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) by Teva, which produces and markets Copaxone® today.

'Until now, medical treatments for all kinds of diseases have relied on trial and error methods to determine dosage and treatment protocols,' says Prof. Ariel Miller of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, and Head of the Multiple Sclerosis and Brain Research Center, Carmel Medical Center, Haifa. 'But the process of fixing the correct dosage affects the efficacy of the treatment and can lead to complications in some cases.' In the past few years, it has been shown that many drugs are not equally effective for every patient, and this variability is due, at least in part, to genetic differences. Finding medications and doses to suit the genetic make-up of each individual patient is likely to be more successful and to cause fewer side effects.

The new research, which deals with the genetic components of the response to Copaxone®, was recently published in the journal Pharmacogenetics and Genomics. It represents a significant step toward realizing this medical vision. In the collaborative study, Teva supplied DNA
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