While the vast majority of Huntington’s disease patients in North America have the uncontrolled and jerky movements known as chorea at clinically relevant levels, about a third of these people are getting medications specifically for this motor symptom. Among treated patients, about half are prescribed VMAT2 inhibitors, the…
Atalanta Therapeutics has raised $97 million to support planned Phase 1 clinical trials of its experimental RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapies for Huntington’s disease and a genetic form of epilepsy. Each treatment aim to silence the activity of genes that underlie these diseases. Atalanta plans to submit investigational…
Subtle biomarkers of neurodegeneration are evident decades before the onset of overt Huntington’s disease symptoms in people with disease-causing mutations, a study found. Somatic CAG repeat expansions — a phenomenon in which Huntington’s-causing mutations grow, or expand, during a person’s lifetime — were associated with these neurodegenerative biomarkers.
Sage Therapeutics is discontinuing the development of dalzanemdor after the investigational therapy failed to improve cognitive abilities relative to a placebo among people with Huntington’s disease enrolled in a Phase 2 clinical trial. Statistically significant gains in cognition with treatment was the main goal of the…
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has launched a Phase 1 clinical trial to test the safety and pharmacological properties of its treatment candidate ALN-HTT02 in adults with Huntington’s disease, the company announced as part of a financial update. “We [have] made great strides with our pipeline, … initiating a Phase 1…
Higher levels of an enzyme called GST02 in the most affected neurons in Huntington’s disease could underlie early increases in the brain-signaling chemical dopamine that are believed to drive Huntington’s motor symptoms, according to a mouse study. Scientists had previously uncovered that a deficiency in a signaling pathway called…
Diminished production in the brain of a protein known as CHCHD2 may contribute to early neurodevelopmental changes that go on to drive Huntington’s disease, a study reports, with scientists poising the gene responsible for its production as a possible therapeutic target. CHCHD2 is involved in maintaining the workings of…
Clumps of the mutant huntingtin protein, which are the known cause of Huntington’s disease, poke holes in the membrane that surrounds and protects cells’ DNA-filled nucleus, according to preclinical research. These protein aggregates had tiny, protruding fibers that damaged the membrane, which is called the nuclear envelope. Lab-grown cells…
The investigational gene therapy AMT-130 is slowing disease progression for people with early-stage Huntington’s disease, as well as lowering levels of neurofilament light chain (NfL), a marker of nerve cell damage. That’s according to two-year data from two Phase 1/2 clinical trials: one in the U.S. (NCT04120493)…
More than three months of treatment with WVE-003 safely leads to significant reductions in mutant huntingtin — the protein that toxically accumulates in Huntington’s disease — for people with early Huntington’s, while preserving levels of the healthy version of huntingtin and trends of slower brain tissue loss and clinical…
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