Differences Between Fenebrutinib and Other BTK Inhibitors: Stuart Silverman, MD

WATCH TIME: 3 minutes

"What makes [fenebrutinib] different is that it would be a lot safer because of its ability to be reversible. If somebody gets an infection or has an EKG change or a vital sign change, if the drug is discontinued, the binding sites won’t take months for the effects to dissipate."

Although there have been a number of FDA-approved therapies to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS), another new class of medications—Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors—are showing promise in the pipeline. Allegheny Health Network (AHN) is among more than 276 sites worldwide participating in the phase 3 FENhance study (NCT04586023), a large-scale trial assessing the safety and efficacy of fenebrutinib, an investigational BTK inhibitor developed by Genentech, compared with teriflunomide (Aubagio; Sanofi), an already approved medication.

The study will involve 1400 total participants between the ages of 18 and 55 years who have been diagnosed with relapsing MS within the last 10 years and will randomly assigned them 1:1 to either fenebrutinib or teriflunomide. Like most traditional MS trials, the study will assess annualized relapse rate over a minimum of 96 weeks, as well as secondary outcomes of time to 12- and 24-week confirmed disability progression (CDP) and number of new T1 gadolinium-enhancing lesions, among others.

To learn more about how fenebrutinib stacks up in comparison with other investigational BTK inhibitors, NeurologyLive^® sat down with Stuart Silverman, MD, a neurologist at AHN’s Neuroscience Institute. Silverman provided commentary on the distinct mechanism of action of the therapy, including its reversible and noncovalent build.