NEW YORK – Octave Bioscience on Wednesday announced it will use its Precision Care Solution platform to better understand the disease trajectory and treatment effects in multiple sclerosis patients within an observational, real-world study.
In this study sponsored by Biogen, researchers will enroll 150 multiple sclerosis patients at the Rocky Mountain MS Clinic, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation's MS Center of Excellence, and Orlando Health MS Comprehensive Care Center. Neurologists will quantitatively measure patients' disease activity, progression, and severity using the tools and services available through Octave's Precision Care Solution, including the Multiple Sclerosis Disease Activity (MSDA) test, MRI analytics and protocols, active and passive daily tracking of patients' disease symptoms, and real-time access to expert nurse practitioners.
Octave expects to enroll the first patients this fall and track study participants for a year after enrollment is complete. Researchers will compare the disease activity of patients with relapsing MS who have received different disease-modifying treatments using the MSDA test, a multi-protein serum-based biomarker assay. The test provides four scores associated with biological pathways involved in MS, including immunomodulation, neuroinflammation, myelin biology, and neuroaxonal integrity. The test also provides patients with an overall disease activity score on a 10-point scale.
Other study objectives include using Octave's clinical insights program to evaluate patients' self-reported symptoms related to depression, anxiety, mobility, and emotional state; comparing patients' health metrics using wearable technology; and assessing how many notifiable events a nurse practitioner documents for patients on different MS treatments throughout the study.
"We believe this study will illustrate the power of the full Octave Solution — insights from biological, radiographic, and clinical phenotype tools — to create a dynamic, longitudinal perspective of a patient with MS," Octave Founder and CEO William Hagstrom said in a statement. "The initiation of this study marks an important milestone as we work with one of the leading companies in MS and neuroscience to obtain deeper insights about patients and their treatments, and ultimately enable improved care for these patients."
Biogen has developed several MS drugs including Vumerity (diroximel fumarate), Tysabri (natalizumab), Plegridy (peginterferon beta-1A), and others.