Basel, Switzerland, June 10, 2015 – Results from pharmaceutical giant, Novartis’ new one-year clinical trial called MEASURE 2 pivotal Phase lll were announced today. The randomized, double-blind, trial studied for an ankylosing spondylitis treatment called secukinumab which 74% of patients found significant improvement in their ankylosing spondylitis (AS) symptoms only a year afterwards.

Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic, painful inflammatory disease that causes rapid creation of new bone as the disease progresses. New bone growth is typically detected in joints and vertebrae, which fuses together. Considered an extremely painful and debilitating condition, AS causes patients’ spines to have life-long damages. With reduced mobility and quality of life, the lives of AS patients and their loved ones are significantly impacted.

When asked, the Global Head of Development at Novartis commented that they were pleased to present such important results from the MEASURE 2 trial, demonstrating the drug’s efficacy in treating AS.

Currently, there are limited AS treatment options available, which reflects the significant unmet needs of thousands of sufferers.

Nearly 40% of AS patients have failed to positively respond to anti-tumor-necrosis-factor (anti-TNF) drugs, which is the current standard of ankylosing spondylitis treatment.

But with the MEASURE 2 study, the clinical benefits of the biologic drug, secukinumab, were detected in AS patients who previously had been untreated or had failed to respond to anti-TNFs. Other than anti-TNFs, secukinumab is the first efficacious biologic treatment found in Phase III studies for AS. Additionally, secukinumab was also shown to be tolerated well by most of the patients in the trial. The most commonly reported adverse side effects were headache and upper respiratory tract infections.

With a good safety record, Cosentyx (secukinumab) was approved as the only anti-TNF inhibitor treatment in Europe for adult patients who had been previously untreated for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Secukinumab has also been approved in other countries such as Japan, the United States, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Singapore, and Australia for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis.

For additional information, visit https://www.novartis.com.

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