News

With projects spanning gene therapy research, patient advocacy, and air travel safety, seven U.S. organizations will receive $140,000 in overall funding from the Muscular Dystrophy Associations (MDA) Advocacy Collaboration Grant Program. The program, which opened in 2022, seeks to support and enhance key public policy and advocacy initiatives…

It may take an average of 11 years before people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) lose upper body function and the ability to breathe on their own, according to a study by researchers of the HERCULES project, which set out to construct a natural history model of the…

A committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has maintained its initial recommendation not to renew the conditional marketing authorization for Translarna (ataluren), PTC Therapeutics’ medication for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). The recommendation by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) comes after the company appealed…

SRP-5051 is able to increase the production of dystrophin protein in people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) amenable to exon 51 skipping — a trial finding its developers suggest will lead to a positive risk-benefit profile for the next-generation DMD treatment. The full results of the two-part…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given orphan drug designation to JUV-161, Juvena Therapeutics’ lead treatment candidate for myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1). Orphan drug status is designed to encourage the development of therapies for rare diseases, or those affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. It provides…

Sarepta Therapeutics has started screening participants for a Phase 3 clinical trial called EMERGENE that will test its gene therapy candidate SRP-9003 in children with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2E (LGMD2E). The open-label trial, also known as SRP-9003-301, aims to recruit 15 patients, age 4 and older, with or without…

SGT-003, a next-generation gene therapy candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) being developed by Solid Biosciences, has been granted orphan drug designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA gives this designation to therapies that are designed to improve medical care for rare disorders, specifically defined…

Agamree (vamorolone) has been approved in the U.K. for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in patients 4 and older. This approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) follows a similar decision in the European Union. In the U.S., Agamree is approved for patients…

Race to End Duchenne, the signature fundraising program from Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), has presented Team Michael James with the 2024 “Racing for Every Future Team” award, while Michael Napoli was this year’s “Make Every Day Count” award recipient. Race to End Duchenne supports PPMD’s mission to cure…

Dosing has begun in a Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating PepGen‘s PGN-EDO51 — a treatment candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients amenable to exon 51 skipping. The trial, called CONNECT1-EDO51 (NCT06079736), will evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of the experimental therapy in about 10 patients,…