Chemically (organic) speaking - avonex and rebif are beta 1a's. Just different dosages and frequencies. Betaseron is a beta 1b. Copaxone is an acetate. Tysabri is a monoclonal antibody.

Back in the late 80's/early 90's when we were watching all the research going on -

Dr Sheremata in Miami seemed to be on the cutting edge of developing alpha interferon. His clinical studies seemed promising.

Dr Ruth Arnon in Israel didn't have much success with COP I. I don't remember who came up with COP II (copaxone).

Beta 1b had been around for a long time. It was the first to get FDA approval. This surprised the majority of us. The clinical results weren't all that good.

And then we have Dr Ted Yednock. His work with monoclonal antibodies seemed like the best shot at heading off MS deterioration at the time. I wonder how TYsabri got its name...

Anti-cytokine didn't make the cut. Interleukin antagonist didn't make the cut. Linomide, Anti-CD40, TGF-B2, DAB-IL-2, TNFrI... all flopped.

The T-cell receptors - peptide, antagonist, antagonist peptide, nope. Antigen specific blocks didn't survive trials either.

No, my memory's not that good. I'm reading my research notes from back then. There was maybe a couple hundred of us MS'ers on the Prodigy MS message board sharing info and trial results. We had a Neuro with MS in Detroit helping us out a lot.

Tom