SCHERING COMPLETES BENEFIT STUDY IN EARLY MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Schering recently announced that the last of 468 patients completed a two-year investigational treatment with Betaferon in the BENEFIT trial. The final results of the study will be presented at the 21st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis in September.

BENEFIT, a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase III study was designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of interferon beta-1b (Betaferon / Betaseron) in patients with first clinical symptoms indicative of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Initial analysis shows high adherence of patients with first clinical signs of MS to Betaferon treatment. More than 93 percent of all treated patients completed the investigational treatment period of up to two years. Furthermore, more than 90 percent of all patients completing the study have elected to continue in an open-label follow-up study with Betaferon.