Arthritis drug easing pain

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Maria Sciarrone and Nicole Riley are enjoying a remarkable turnaround with their arthritis now only a painful memory.

For 10 years, 46-year-old Maria tried every medication on the market, yet her hips, elbows and hands remained painful.

Climbing the stairs was impossible, she was depressed and life was grim.

"It got the point where we thought about selling the home because I couldn't get up and down the stairs," she said.

"I wouldn't be able to do my shopping or even carry two bags of shopping."

Then Maria's rheumatologist involved her in the trial of a new drug called Tocilizumab.

It is given intravenously once a month and having exhausted every other avenue, it was Maria's last roll of the dice.

"It's changed my life right around," she said.

Dr Stephen Hall said the drug blocks the chemical in the joint responsible for driving rheumatoid arthritis.

"The trials that were probably the most exciting were the ones where patients had failed to respond to the best treatments we currently have available," he said.

"In that patient population, the vast majority of people exhibited a good response to this new drug.

"We now have the ability to take people with this really nasty arthritis and return them to good activity to the point where they can play competitive sport."

The treatment was effective within eight weeks for 39-year-old Nicole.

"I started to notice I wasn't as tired as I had been," she said.

"I used to have to go and have a nap, even at work I'd say I was just ducking off to the sick room and had a lay down.

"I stopped doing that, I could walk for longer distances and basically the pain had started to ease."

Tocilizumab trials are claimed to show it is three times more effective at halting the progression of the disease than current therapies.

A year's worth of treatment can cost $30,000.

Before the drug can be put on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme it needs to be approved for use.

Dr Hall believes it is only a matter of time.

"The drug will be submitted for registration in Australia and elsewhere around the world and I've got little doubt that it's going to be a drug looked on favourably by most regulatory authorities," he said.

It is expected that Tocilizumab will not be available for sale before 2010.

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