Swiss drug maker and Income Portfolio member Novartis (NVS) is on the verge of shaking up the market for multiple sclerosis drugs. The neurological disease, also known as MS, affects some 2.5 million people worldwide. It has a growing drug market, expected to reach $15 billion by 2015.

Late last week, an FDA advisory panel voted 21-3 in favor of Novartis’s Gilenia drug to be “generally recommended” as an initial treatment for MS. Gilenia would be the first pill used to treat the disease, whose current therapies are harder to maintain because of difficult administration and/or harsh side effects.

While the panel voted unanimously in favor of the pill’s efficacy and safety, it does not come without its own side effects, including heart, lung, and liver risks and infections. With these in mind, the panel voted to suggest a study of lower dosing amounts: 0.25 milligrams a day, versus the current 0.5 milligram proposed daily dose. The study, which Novartis says could take some five to six years to complete with 2,000 patients, can wait until Gilenia is on the market, according to the panel.

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