Drug trial could offer hope for sufferers of Motor Neurone

A groundbreaking clinical drug trial for Motor Neurone Disease (MND) has been launched which will allow patients to undergo more than one treatment at a time.

MND-SMART is a UK-wide initiative which aims to find treatments that can slow, stop or reverse progression of the terminal disease.

Hundreds of people living with the illness, which progressively stops signals from the brain reaching the muscles, are now being invited to take part in one of the UK’s most “comprehensive” clinical trials in a generation.

The project will unusually allow more than one treatment to be tested at a time, giving patients a higher chance of receiving an active treatment, rather than the placebo.

Suvankar Pal, neurologist and MND-SMART co-investigator, said: “We’re very excited to be launching this trial. It gives real hope to people with MND across the UK.”

The project, led by the Euan MacDonald Centre for MND Research at Edinburgh University, has been developed to find effective medicines more quickly.

New drugs can be added once the trial has started, while ineffective medicines can be dropped.

Doddie Weir, founder of the MND research charity My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, is taking part in the trial.

The former Scotland rugby international revealed his diagnosis in June 2017.

The 49-year-old said: “I want to reach out to everyone else who has MND to register for the trial because at the moment there is nothing there on the plate for anyone who has got MND so it’s an exciting time ahead.”