Anyone have any layman's info on this drug? My husband is in a drug trial with Ocrelizumab & Methotrexate for advanced R.A. Just had his first infusion. The info I have found is very hard for me read/understand so I thought I would ask here for your experience/knowledge etc

Thanks

This is a site I found from Mayo Clinic....http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/SEARCH/DrugSearch I hope this helps. I could not find anything on Ocrelizumab are you sure it's spelled correctly?

I have no layman's or professional experience with this drug.

I did some research and found that it is still in the clinical trial phase 3....Roche Pharmaceuticals. It's scheduled to go to some time in 2011.
http://www.roche-trials.com/patient/...ial110760.html


It appears to be a HUGE trial as there are many locations around the world participating.

I hope this works for your hubby and he has pain free days!!


Abbie

That's the one! We are really hoping it can slow down the progression (but of course if it puts him into remission or relieves his symptoms we won't complain!).

The evening of he felt like yuck and progressed into fever, chills, nausea, sweats etc by next AM. We feared he had picked up the flu or some infection while getting the infusion (8 am - 3pm). Of course it could have been the steroids they loaded him up with at the same time (part of prtocol to lessen side effects)

We had 2 1/2 days of "shoot me and put me out of my misery" then things started getting better. He still doesn't feel A-OK but is not actively bit**ing anymore {thank goodness, as we all know how men can be!}

The trial gos for 18 months then there is an open for the open label period. We have decided if he thinks it helps he will do the estended open label period.

I suspect this is worth mega money. They are also thinking of it as promising for MS and another auto-immune issue. The combined effort by all the companies (Genetech, Roche, etc), the way they treat him (What can we get you for lunch Mr P? Are you comfy? Thirsty? etc) coupled with the world wide trial tells me they think this is a possible goldmine in the wings. I can tell you the entry screening was tough. You had to be pretty sick/advanced and with all sorts of labs to get approved to be considered.

It's the first time we were actually getting a positive out of his disease process! ROTFL