Annette Funicello’s death raises MS awareness

The death this week of actress and one-time Disney Mouseketeer Annette Funicello from complications of multiple sclerosis raised the specter of a debilitating disease and the need for further research to one day find a cure.

It serves to remind us there are many, many people in our country and around the world with MS, said Nicholas LaRocca, vice president of health-care delivery and policy research at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Were all striving for the goal of a world free of MS. But not everybody responds to treatment in the same way, so the more options there are, the better.

Funicello, 70, was diagnosed with the disease in 1987 and went on to become an advocate for multiple sclerosis awareness and research.

In Massachusetts, several companies have developed drugs to treat multiple sclerosis, which affects an estimated 400,000 people in the United States and 2.1 million worldwide.

Biogen Idec has three such drugs: Avonex, Tysabri and, most recently, Tecfidera, which received federal approval two weeks ago.

All of them are disease-modifying therapies that reduce the number of relapses and slow the progression of MS ... until we can find a cure, which is what were all committed to, said Kate Niazi-Sai, a Biogen Idec spokeswoman.

Genzyme has developed Aubagio, which was approved last September, and Lemtrada, which is under regulatory review.

Novartis has Gilenya, which it describes as the only approved MS treatment shown to consistently decrease brain volume loss across studies, with a significant effect seen as early as six months.

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Annette Funicello’s death raises MS awareness