Assessing the Growing Treatment Landscape for Myasthenia Gravis, Next Steps in Optimization: Henry Kaminski, MD

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"When I say the individual patient, it’s their biology, their environment, which also means their socioeconomic status, which often goes to race and ethnicity. We’re not identifying those patients adequately in clinical trials, and that gap needs to be bridged. Again, that goes back to the physicians and clinical trial specialists working together with those patients to say what’s important to them."

Myasthenia gravis (MG), a rare autoimmune neuromuscular disorder, can be treated with therapies, surgery, and other approaches. There are several different approved immunosuppressant medications that are built to help prevent the body from producing the harmful antibodies that cause MG muscle weakness in the first place. Clinicians who treat these patients have seen their toolbox grow exponentially in recent years, with the most recent being efgartigimod (Vyvgart; Argenx), approved in December 2021.

At the 2022 Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Clinical and Scientific Conference, March 13-16, in Nashville, Tennessee, several different clinical trials that involved investigational agents for MG were on display, a testament to the state of the treatment pipeline. For Henry Kaminski, MD, it is important to have such a variety of therapeutics that have different mechanisms of action, especially considering the complexity of each individual patient’s disease.

In the coming year, there could be more approvals for MG, which is why Kaminski, chairman of the department of neurology at George Washington University, believes it’s important to collect real-world data. He sat down with NeurologyLive® to discuss the opportunities of the ever-expanding treatment landscape and the need to ensure that clinical trials are done with the population that most represents society.

For more coverage of MDA 2022, click here.