Multiple sclerosis affects young people. These diagnoses come when people are actually starting their social life, family life, career. So it is extremely important that we offer therapies that fit their lifestyle," says Malina Wieczorek, president of SM Walcz o Siebie.
Multiple Sclerosis: Shorter administration is a benefit to patient and system
Published May 22, 2025 06:40
What is important from the patient's point of view and from a societal perspective in making the right choice of multiple sclerosis therapy?
Multiple sclerosis affects young people. These diagnoses come when people are actually starting their social life, family life, and careers. So it is extremely important that we offer therapies that fit their lifestyle. One that we are looking forward to now is a modern therapy with the highly active drug okrelizumab, which has appeared in the world in subcutaneous intravenous versus intravenous form, which has been used with success for a long time. It is this reimbursement that we are awaiting at the moment. Why is it so important? First of all, it's a more convenient form for the patient, and we're talking at the moment about patient welfare and a shorter hospital stay. I have the results of a new Time & Motion study. It turns out that the length of time a patient stays in the hospital when using the subcutaneous version is 187 minutes shorter. That's 4 times shorter than the intravenous version. It's also less of a psychological burden, because the patient comes in, gets the injection, goes home, goes to work, goes back to his duties, goes back to his life.
But patients and their welfare is one of the aspects we are talking about. Above all, modern forms of administration also affect the state budget. It's not a well-known fact that we have staffing problems with doctors, with nursing staff. These types of modern solutions, as also indicated by the result of the Time and Motion study, such as the subcutaneous administration of this drug, reduce the doctor's involvement by 57% and the nurse's by as much as 63%.
These are huge savings. Also, total costs are reduced by almost 60%. All of this then stays in the budget, and the time that doctors and nursing staff can devote to the patient can be redirected to more people. So this flow and opportunity to treat, to halt the progression of multiple sclerosis, to halt the progression of possible disability occurs for a larger group of people. Above all, the tremendous effectiveness of this is demonstrated here.
