A promising scientist
Zoé van Kempen is well-known to the MS community. In 2016, during her neurology training, she completed her internship at the MS Center Amsterdam. It was there and then that her passion for working as an MS neurologist began, and she started her scientific research. After completing her medical training, she received a clinical fellowship, allowing her to further develop her expertise at the MS Center Amsterdam. While acquiring several grants, she continued her scientific work, which led to the completion of her PhD in 2020, numerous publications, and international collaborations. The recently awarded personal grant from the MS Research Foundation is the result of years of dedication and perseverance. All aimed at optimizing the dosing of high-impact medications in MS.
MS medication
While MS is currently incurable, medications have been available since the early 1990s to reduce inflammation in the brain and thus MS attacks. MS treatments are generally categorized as either low- or high-efficacy. The low-effective ones are called first-line medications. When MS is highly active - for instance, if a person experiences frequent attacks or rapid progression - high-efficacy, second-line treatments become necessary. However, these more powerful drugs carry a higher risk of side effects, as they significantly suppress the immune system, increasing the risk of infections compared to low-efficacy treatments.
Personalized treatment
Van Kempen studies whether personalized dosing can help reduce both side effects and the need for frequent hospital visits. She explains: “We were the first center in the world to start investigating individualized dosing of the high-efficacy drug natalizumab. At that time, it was the first MS medication administered via infusion. We only gave a new infusion when the drug concentration in the blood dropped below a specific threshold. As a result, one patient received an infusion after four weeks and another only after nine weeks. We found that this not only reduced treatment burden but also lowered the risk of serious complications. And significantly, it led to cost savings — helping to keep healthcare expenses and insurance premiums as low as possible.” Her research approach has since been adopted by many hospitals across the Netherlands.
MS Efficiency Network
Her research work doesn’t stop there. “I want personalized medication to be available for everyone with MS,” says Van Kempen. Two major national studies on personalized dosing are currently underway. The SuperNext-MS study is investigating whether the interval between natalizumab infusions can be safely extended even further. Meanwhile, the BLOOMS study is exploring whether personalized treatment regimens can also be developed for therapies that target B cells.
To coordinate these efforts, the MS Efficiency Network was established in January 2024, with Zoé van Kempen as chair of the network. “We were able to establish the MS Efficiency Network thanks to support from the Treatmeds Foundation,” she explains. “More than forty hospitals and MS centers across the Netherlands are involved. The enthusiasm to collaborate and improve MS care is tremendous.”
An important new topic is MS care at home. “When people with MS spend less time with trips to the hospital, they feel less like a patient, and quality of life improves. Needing fewer infusions is already a step forward, but it would be even better if we could conduct the necessary blood tests, to check whether a new dose is needed, at home using a simple finger-prick test.”
Source: MS Center Amsterdam UMC