A charity based in Letchworth GC has helped to get new a drug – which will helps thousands of people suffering with multiple sclerosis (MS) – gain approval.

Teriflunomide, also know as Aubagio, has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to treat people with relapsing remitting MS, a disease which affects the central nervous system.

The MS Trust, based at the Spirella Building in Bridge Road, helped frame the scope of an appraisal and submitted statements detailing why they thought the drug should be made available to NICE.

In tests taken over two years, the drug was proven to reduce the amount of relapses that occurred in suffers by one third.

Pam Macfarlane, chief executive of the MS Trust, which is a leading provider of information on the disease, said: “This is excellent news. Teriflunomide is taken as a tablet and it acts in a different way to the current disease modifying drug therapies, so it will expand the range of treatments available to people with relapsing remitting MS.

“With more available, it is becoming increasingly important for people to consider both the benefits and the risks of all the drugs and talk through all their options with their neurologist and MS specialist nurse.”

Suffers have to take one tablet a day as part of the programme, which should be available from April 2014.

For more information visit www.mstrust.org.uk