The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to Cure Rare Disease’s CRD-002, an antisense oligonucleotide therapeutic for the treatment of spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), including spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3).
Polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases, a group of dominantly inherited CNS disorders, are caused by an abnormal expansion of cytosine-adenine-guanine repeats (usually over 35-40 repeats). PolyQ diseases, including spinocerebellar ataxia and Huntington’s disease, cause brain neurodegeneration, leading to progressive motor and often cognitive signs.
Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. has signed a licensing and collaboration agreement with Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. to obtain exclusive global rights to multiple clinical, preclinical and discovery-stage programs for rare genetic diseases of the muscle, central nervous system (CNS) and the lungs. The deal includes ARO-DUX4, ARO-DM1, ARO-MMP7 and ARO-ATXN2.
In the largest collaboration of 2024, Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. and Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. entered a sprawling global licensing deal that includes a swath of clinical and preclinical candidates targeting rare genetic diseases. Under the terms, Sarepta gains access to existing and potential future compounds derived from the RNAi platform developed by Arrowhead, with the latter eligible for payments potentially exceeding $11 billion.
A little more than a year after the U.S. FDA refused to review the NDA for Biohaven Ltd.’s ultra rare disease treatment, new and positive phase III data have changed the treatment’s momentum. The upbeat results came as a surprise to analysts and investors, with the stock having a strong day and the company prepping an NDA for a fourth quarter submission.
Not hitting the primary endpoint of a phase III study caused the U.S. FDA to say it would not review Biohaven Ltd.’s NDA for troriluzole to treat spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA), an ultra-rare disorder.
The phenotypic variety of spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs) not caused by CAG repeat expansion (polyglutamine SCA) is greater than expected. A collaboration directed by scientists of the Paris Brain Institute described seven variants of this disorder in 756 individuals, observing that age at onset and progression by gene and variant can occur from childhood to late adulthood with very different forms of the disease.
Regenerative medicine product Stemchymal, an allogeneic adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell treatment, missed the primary efficacy endpoints in two phase II spinocerebellar ataxia trials conducted in Japan and Korea, but a subpopulation analysis showed efficacy signals in patients with more severe conditions, Reprocell Inc. reported.
Four scientists have shared the 2022 Kavli Prize in neuroscience, "for pioneering the discovery of genes underlying a range of serious brain disorders," together and separately.
By acquiring privately held Cadent Therapeutics Inc., Novartis AG gains full rights to Cadent’s allosteric modulator program, part of which the two companies began collaborating on in 2015, and all the company’s outstanding stock. Cambridge, Mass.-based Cadent will receive as much as $770 million, $210 million of it up front, plus $560 million in milestones.