News

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…

Tonya Dreher wanted to do something dramatic on behalf of Hope for Gus, the New Hampshire-based foundation inspired by her son, Gus, 14, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). In 2015, frustrated with her fundraising efforts on behalf of DMD research, she came up with the idea of…

Astellas Pharma recently agreed to acquire Audentes Therapeutics, a move it expects will result in faster development of potentially best-in-class therapies for rare neuromuscular diseases, including muscular dystrophy (MD). Audentes’ vectorized exon-skipping technology — which uses a modified adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector to allow cells to…

Throughout 2019, Muscular Dystrophy News Today brought you daily coverage of important discoveries, treatment developments, clinical trials, and other important events related to muscular dystrophy. As we look forward to bringing you more news this year, we present the 10 most-read stories of 2019. No. 10 – “Sarepta…

The newly approved therapy Vyondys 53 (golodirsen) is available for immediate distribution to treat people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) amenable to exon 53 skipping, according to the medicine’s developer Sarepta Therapeutics. In an email reply to Muscular Dystrophy News Today, a spokeswoman added that, similar to Exondys 51 (eteplirsen, also…

Following its failure to increase dystrophin levels of patients in an early-stage clinical trial, Wave Life Sciences has discontinued development of the investigational exon-skipping therapy suvodirsen for people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Lack of dystrophin, an essential protein for healthy muscles, causes DMD. Patients may…