While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic won’t have much of an impact on cash available for new biotech startups, it has begun to cause delays in the development of gene therapies to treat a variety of rare diseases. That’s the consensus of industry experts who spoke in a May 26 webinar…
European authorities must step up efforts to screen babies for a multitude of genetic disorders, a panel of experts suggested during a May 14-15 online medical conference. The session was part of the 10th European Conference on Rare Diseases & Orphan Products (ECRD2020) — which was to have occurred…
Eurordis, a Paris-based coalition of national rare disease associations across Europe, hosted its first all-virtual conference, bringing some 1,500 delegates from 57 countries together online during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 10th European Conference on Rare Diseases & Orphan Products (ECRD2020) — which was set for May 14–15 in…
As the number of Americans infected with COVID-19 surpasses one million, it’s no surprise that people with rare diseases — whose immune systems were generally compromised even before the outbreak — are particularly terrified of this pandemic. That fear is evident in an online survey conducted by the National…
Traci and Tony Rico of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, juggle more than their share of family health issues. Their son, Tanner, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and their daughter, Pria, has recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (RPP) — a rare genetic condition that has led to 97 surgeries to remove tumors in her larynx…
First, the bad news: If you’re one of the 30 million or so Americans with a rare disease, you probably have lower immunity to the novel coronavirus than most people. Now, the good news: You already know how to face loneliness and adversity — qualities that make you far stronger…
Even with the coronavirus pandemic ravaging Europe and much of the world, patient advocate Lucia Monaco, PhD, of Italy remains confident that the Paris-based nonprofit she chairs will see the approval of 1,000 new rare disease therapies by 2027. That group, the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) —…
Eighty delegates from 37 countries recently met in Athens for the 2019 Duchenne Patient Academy — a three-day series of master classes aimed at deepening global understanding of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and coordinating advocacy strategy. The Dec. 6-8 conference, an annual event since its 2017 start, covered subjects…
The gleaming new Dutch headquarters of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), fronting Domenico Scarlattilaan in Amsterdam’s suburban Zuidas business district, finally opened for business last month — just over two years after the European Union decided to relocate the EMA to the Netherlands in the wake of Brexit.
Montana, the fourth-largest U.S. state in area, also is one of the least-populated — with maybe half a dozen Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients among its 1.1 million inhabitants. One of them is 5-year-old Grant Heaton, the son of cattle ranchers Paul and Laura Heaton. Diagnosed with Duchenne at age…
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