Newly funded multiple sclerosis injection shrinks NZ treatment time from 5 hours to 10 minutes

Sophie Walker, 31, pictured with her dog Maisie, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in January 2025.

More than 5000 New Zealanders live with multiple sclerosis (MS).

There is no cure, meaning most people with MS are on lifelong treatment. From this week, a new treatment Ocrevus SC is publicly funded - and for those living with MS, it could make a huge difference.

MS is a neurological condition in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath, which protects nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord.

This slows down nerves’ messaging around the body, causing symptoms from numbness, tingling, and muscle weakness to problems with vision, balance, the bowels and bladder, as well as deep fatigue.

Aucklander Sophie Walker, 31, first noticed symptoms in October 2024.

“I just had some numbness in my face and I was like, ‘well, that’s weird’. Then throughout the week it went into my cheek, temple and into my gums,” she tells the Herald.

The initial numbness went away, but Walker went to her GP and was referred for MRIs on her brain and spinal column, after which she underwent a lumbar puncture and various tests.

By January this year, she had the diagnosis; multiple sclerosis.

“I didn’t expect it at all. I remember lying in the MRI machine [thinking] ‘I don’t need to be here’,” she recalls.

From the moment she was diagnosed, Walker says, “Everything was very heavy, very stressful, quite scary.

“Everyone knows someone with MS, so everyone thinks that they know your story or what’s going to happen ... they have an opinion or they have advice for you that is unsolicited.

“My symptoms are all very internal. If I walked past you, you wouldn’t think that I had an autoimmune neurological condition. I’m extremely lucky my symptoms haven’t been too severe.

“However, everyone is different. You have to move through your own stuff and understand what is a symptom or what isn’t.”

Walker, who works as a self-employed neuromuscular massage therapist, is on medication for nerve pain and deals with extreme fatigue. This means when it comes to the daily tasks that most take for granted, she has to break them down into manageable steps.

“It’s not like ‘I’m tired’. It’s like, if I wanted to go to the supermarket, it’s not just me going to the supermarket, it’s me walking down the stairs, getting in the car, driving, parking, and then doing the supermarket shop.

“Before I started my treatment, I would wake up at 10 or 11am and I would feel like it’s 2am.”

She has been receiving the drug Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) as an IV infusion, which she describes as an “absolute game changer”.

“I felt like my brain was open. And that’s a really vague thing to say, but for me that was what it felt like,” she says of her first full dose.

Walker says it’s made a difference to her overall energy.

“The cognitive ability is less hard [for me now]. If I’m at work and I’m explaining something to a client of mine or educating them or even doing the session, it’s not as hard.”

Sophie Walker, pictured walking her dog Maisie, says the drug Ocrevus has been a "game-changer".

From December 1, that drug is now publicly funded as a subcutaneous (under the skin) injection. For Walker, it means a brief hospital appointment every six months, instead of having to take the day off for an hours-long IV infusion.

“My best case scenario is get up early, have the injection, be there for half an hour, and then be able to go into clinic and do two to three clients in the afternoon,” she says.

It will give her back the time she’s lost, she says, and enable her to “do what I love and just carry on as normal”.

“That’s the biggest thing, is having to pause your life, take a day off, put my dog into daycare, all that stuff. It’s all the life admin.”

Previously, her dad would have to travel from the Manawatū to Auckland to help support her after her treatment. It shows that MS affects “everyone”, she says. “It’s not a one-person situation, at all.”

A year on from when she first started having symptoms, Walker says, “It’s quite amazing how something like this teaches you that you can have a work-life balance.

“You treat your body with more respect than maybe you did beforehand.

“There’s a lot of good that comes out of this, and you learn so much about your body, about resilience, about your capability.”

Now, she’s “extremely grateful” for the experience.

“It’s taught me a lot more empathy because everyone has something, so you have to be kind.”

According to drug company Roche, Ocrevus SC will offer eligible patients “significant time savings”, with a 98% faster treatment time than IV infusion.

Rather than a three-and-a half to five-and-a-half hour infusion, the injection appointment will take an average of 10 minutes, enabling nine people to be treated for every one with an IV. It will also reduce wait times and the number of staff needed per patient, and will free up capacity for hospital infusion suites.

Multiple Sclerosis New Zealand national manager Amanda Rose says MS is a complex condition, and for many MS patients, time and location can make it difficult to get treatment.

Amanda Rose is the National Manager for Multiple Sclerosis New Zealand.

“People who live rurally and away from main centres are having to travel quite long distances to be able to go to their infusion in the hospital, where they then have to sit for three to six hours,” she says.

“Often people’s families or carers have to travel with them. So the person with MS has to take a day off work and their family member also has to take a day off work to be with them and support them in the following days while they recover from their infusion therapy.

“We’re aware of many patients who have to take sick leave in order to go and get their treatments, and what that means is they don’t have sick leave available for them when they actually need it.”

Symptoms can vary widely and can have a “significant” impact on people’s daily lives, Rose says.

“There are many symptoms that are unseen, so many people get told that they look fine, but what people don’t understand is the pain or the fatigue, or the balance issues that they might be struggling with at the time.”

Rose says thanks to ongoing research into MS, it’s much more treatable for most people than it was a decade ago.

“When people have access to timely diagnosis, excellent MS care services and the best available treatments, their outlook is much improved from where it was 10 years ago, and continually improving.

“That’s not to say that it is available for everyone - there are many people who are either unable to access treatment, or the treatments don’t exist for their type of MS at the moment. So we’re constantly following the advancements in research.”

Having Ocrevus SC funded in New Zealand will be life-changing for Kiwis living with MS, she says.

“We’re already hearing from patients very excited about having access to this treatment. They’ll have to take less time off work, they’ll be able to go for much shorter treatments.

“Eventually the hope is that we’ll be able to get the subcutaneous treatments delivered in the community.”

Another positive, she says, is that it will give time back to patients and staff across the wider health system.

“These MS treatments are incredibly valuable and they are giving people back their lives, but we do acknowledge that they are resource heavy.

“So these subcutaneous treatments are a new era not only for [MS] patients, but for the hospital system and for other patients who require infusion treatments - often life-saving ones.”

Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis’ real-life stories.