£6m statin trial raises hope drug can be used to treat multiple sclerosis

Trial involving almost 1,200 people aims to ‘establish definitively’ whether cholesterol drug can slow disability progression

Scientists are hopeful a major drug trial will establish that statins can be used to treat multiple sclerosis.

The low-cost drugs are typically prescribed to help lower levels of “bad cholesterol” associated with raised risk of a heart attack or stroke, but they have also shown “incredible promise” for the treatment of MS.

A small study – involving 140 people – published in the Lancet in 2014 on patients with secondary progressive MS, found those taking high doses of simvastatin had a significant reduction in the rate of brain atrophy over two years and also had better disability scores at the end of study.

The new trial will be much larger, involving 1,180 people, and will aim to establish whether the drug can slow disability progression. The £6m project has funding from the National Institute for Health Research, the charities MS Society UK and National MS Society (US), as well as from the NHS and British universities.

Dr Jeremy Chataway, of the UCL Institute of Neurology, who led the 2014 trial, will also be at the helm for the new study.

He said: “This drug [simvastatin] holds incredible promise for the thousands of people living with secondary progressive MS in the UK, and around the world, who currently have few options for treatments that have an effect on disability. This study will establish definitively whether simvastatin is able to slow the rate of disability progression over a three-year period, and we are very hopeful it will.”

More than 100,000 people in the UK have MS, which attacks the central nervous system. Symptoms usually start when a person is in their 20s and 30s and it affects almost three times as many women as men. It can be painful and exhausting and can cause problems with walking, moving, thought, memory and emotions.

Most of those diagnosed have relapsing MS and about 65% of these cases develop secondary progressive MS, usually within 15 years. There are currently no licensed treatments that can slow or stop disability progression in people with secondary progressive MS.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of the MS Society, said the research would offer “a huge amount of hope”. She added: “This is a momentous step forward in our quest to find an effective treatment for progressive MS.”

Statins are estimated to prevent about 80,000 strokes and heart attacks a year in the UK but critics questioned the safety and efficacy of the drugs after NHS guidelines advised that prescriptions should be extended to those at lower risk of heart disease. Research published this month suggests the common side-effects of statins are a result of patients’ negative expectations rather than the drugs themselves.

Simvastatin is the most commonly used of the anti-cholesterol drugs. In the 2014 trial, patients were given 80mg doses, which would cost about 7p a day.

Stuart Nixon, who lives with secondary progressive MS, said: “At the moment people like me are living with the prospect of our condition getting worse each day. This is the most exciting opportunity to change how we manage progressive MS. It would be amazing if this trial can show that an existing drug, costing just a few pence a day, can help with MS.”