Octopus update May 2024
The trial is recruiting well due to the volume of registrations from the MS community and the hard work of our Octopus hospital sites.
So far:
- 13 hospital sites are open and actively contacting potential participants.
- 413 potential participants have been through telephone screening by their chosen site.
- 296 have attended their chosen hospital site for further screening and to give consent.
- 241 participants have entered the Octopus trial and started trial treatment.
- Another 134 participants will start treatment on the Octopus trial by December 2024 – to reach the goal of 375 participants in this first stage of the trial.
You and Octopus
The Octopus team would like to thank you for your continued patience following your registration of interest. We really appreciate all the enthusiasm from the MS Community and apologise that we cannot enrol you all on the trial now, but we will continue to recruit people into the trial until at least 2028. Sites are contacting potential participants who may be eligible after completing the form by phone or email. This is to go through their answers in more detail and to check if they are suitable to take part. But this will take time and may not be this year.
Your registration is very important, and we value your interest in this trial.
Important
It is important to remember Octopus will recruit participants until at least 2028 and has 2 stages. Stage 1 (the stage we are in at present) needs 375 participants (aim is to finish recruiting participants in December 2024). Stage 2 will start in 2025 and will recruit about 825 more participants until around 2028. We will also add more treatment arms in 2026 and therefore more participants will be contacted from those who have already registered their interest.
Please still bear in mind you may not be contacted by your chosen site for a while. Because of the unprecedented number of registrations of interest, if you’re aged 69 or 70 now you may not be contacted before you’re 71, and unfortunately that would mean that you’re not able to join Octopus. The trial hospital site teams will aim to prioritise those close to 70, but if this is not possible, we apologise.
Further information on Octopus and other trials
Our next update will be in August 2024. But do not forget if you would like more information or updates on Octopus, please visit: www.ms-octopus.info
For information on MS research and for practical support for MS, please refer to the MS Society website (https://www.mssociety.org.uk/care-and-support). If you would like to know about other MS Clinical trials available, please refer to https://www.mssociety.org.uk/research/take-part-in-ms-research/be-in-a-study
We also encourage you to sign up to the MS Register for updates about the Octopus trial and other relevant studies.
Thank you for your continued patience and interest in Octopus.
