FDA Grants Orphan Drug Designation to Pridopidine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to Prilenia’s pridopidine for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The decision follows a recent positive opinion from a branch of the European Medicines Agency recommending the treatment be given orphan drug status in…

Among the many challenges of living with ALS are the physical symptoms of muscle stiffness and weakness. I have both. During my first year with ALS, I’d wake up and walk into the bathroom doing a good imitation of the clumsy, lurching steps of Frankenstein’s monster. On other days,…

Ubiquitination — the cell’s process of tagging proteins, often to degrade unwanted ones — is essential for the disassembly of stress granules that, by not being cleared, damage cells in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, a study showed. The study, “Ubiquitination is essential for…

Coya Therapeutics’ ALS001, a potential regulatory T-cell (Treg) therapy designed to halt amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) progression, has been granted an orphan drug designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Furthermore, a Phase 2a trial (NCT04055623) testing ALS001 versus a placebo in 12 ALS patients…

Using motor neurons derived from people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a promising approach to screen for molecules that prevent certain disease mechanisms, and to identify new targets for therapies, according to a recent study. Two classes of therapies were identified that might lessen the excessive firing of motor…

Knowing that so much is riding on me creates a lot of pressure. I don’t get sick days, vacation, or weekends off. Taking time off to attend to my health issues requires finding and paying for caregivers for my husband, Todd, who is paralyzed due to ALS. For example, I…

Strenuous, intense exercise done frequently is an environmental risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in people with ALS risk genes, particularly those who carry a faulty C9ORF72 gene, a study concluded. Future research is needed to better understand and identify people at disease risk due to such exercise,…

A July 15 golfing event brings the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) together with he Azzur Group to raise money to help support research into potential new treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The Azzur Fore ALS Golf Tournament is set to take place on Thursday, July…

I’ll admit to hearing voices — the voices in my head, that is. We’re all listening to our mental voices. It’s the constant chatter of inner dialogue or self-talk that leapfrogs through our thoughts, beliefs, questions, and ideas. Mostly the chatter is background noise, accompanying our daily activities and conversations.

Alector and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have established a partnership to develop two investigational antibodies — called AL001 and AL101 — to boost the production of the progranulin protein as a potential treatment for neurodegenerative diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Low levels of progranulin, known as PGRN, which is a…