News

Partnership Aims to Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs for Rare Disease Meds

AllianceRx Walgreens Prime, a specialty and home delivery pharmacy, is partnering with TailorMed, a healthcare technology company, to help lower out-of-pocket prescription costs for specialty pharmacy patients. Medications attained through specialty pharmacies are those used to treat rare and chronic conditions in the U.S., and are often extremely costly. For…

DMD Trial Testing Oral ASP0367 Recruiting Boys 8–16 in US

A Phase 1b clinical trial evaluating Astellas Pharma’s ASP0367 is recruiting boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), ages 8–16, at six U.S. sites. The ongoing trial (NCT04184882) is evaluating the safety and tolerability of the investigational oral therapy, which is designed to improve muscle function in patients with DMD,…

New MRI Technique Provides Whole-body Analyses in FSHD Trial

AMRA Medical’s new MRI method was found to play an instrumental role in detecting changes in disease progression among individuals with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) in a recently completed clinical trial, according to the company. The new MRI technique, introduced in the Phase 2b ReDUX4 study, provides…

Nominations Open for 2022 Eurordis Black Pearl Awards

Nominations are now open for the worldwide 2022 Black Pearl Awards from Eurordis-Rare Diseases Europe. The 12 award categories recognize individual advocates, policy makers, researchers, organizations, and companies who work to make a difference for the global rare disease community. The deadline for nominations is Sept. 10…

Givinostat Appears to Slow Muscle Decline in Becker MD Trial

Givinostat halted muscle shrinkage and fat infiltration in men with Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) despite failing to ease muscle scarring, compared to a placebo, according to top-line, one-year results of an ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial. “We are very encouraged by the significant difference in muscle fat infiltration…

LION-101 Gene Therapy for Rare MD Type Now on FDA Fast Track

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast track designation to LION-101, an investigational gene therapy that Asklepios BioPharmaceutical (AskBio) is developing as a treatment for limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2I/R9 (LGMD2I/R9). This designation is given to therapies designed to fill an unmet need in medical care for…

Losmapimod Fails at FSHD Trial’s Primary Goal, But Shows Potential

Oral losmapimod, an investigational treatment for people with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), showed clinically relevant benefits over a placebo on multiple measures of disease progression and patient-reported outcomes after almost a year, according to data from the ReDUX4 Phase 2b clinical trial. But the therapy failed to reach…