Switching From S1P-Modulating Therapies to Other DMTs

At the 2024 Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) Annual Meeting, NeurologyLive sat down with MS expert Donald Negroski, MD, to discuss several of the top presentations and data on treatment switches and aging in MS. Negroski provided an overview of various presentations, offering his clinical perspective and how findings may impact care going forward.

In this segment, Negroski provided commentary on a retrospective analysis highlighting the reasons for switching from sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P)-modulating agents to ozanimod (Zeposia; BMS), another FDA-approved disease-modifying therapy. In addition, he spoke on the financial toll some patients face when choosing between approved therapies.

Transcript edited below for clarity.

Donald Negroski, MD: In the abstract, they (investigators) asked healthcare providers why patients switched from the various S1Ps to ozanimod, and the major driver was actually copay assistance and some financial issues with lack of copay as well as tolerability less so. The take-home message is that copay assistance and financial burden on patients is starting to drive treatment decisions, which is something unusual. In the past, neurologists have seemed to think that—and rightly so—they know who should go on what particular drugs and some of these recent abstracts suggest that there's other drivers, more from a financial standpoint.