Roche set to take its MS drug to regulators, but safety questions loom

Andrew Joseph covers health, medicine, and the biopharma industry in Europe. You can reach Andrew on Signal at drewqjoseph.71.

The Swiss drugmaker Roche on Tuesday presented the latest data for its experimental multiple sclerosis drug, setting the stage for the company to seek approval for a medicine that it believes can cut relapse rates and slow the progressive disability the disease causes.  

Now the test is whether the drug, called fenebrutinib, can win the regulatory green light.

While three late-stage trials of the drug have shown it to be effective, analysts have homed in on some potentially worrying liver safety signals, an issue that previously prompted the Food and Drug Administration to reject an MS therapy developed by Sanofi. In data released Tuesday, researchers also disclosed that there were two drug-related deaths among patients who took fenebrutinib.