Marisa Wexler, MS,  senior science writer—

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted fast track designation to SAGE-718 as a potential therapy for Huntington’s disease. The FDA gives this designation to experimental medications with the potential to improve medical care for serious health conditions and fill unmet needs. The designation gives the therapy’s…

Huntington’s disease patients who have not yet developed symptoms have a different relationship with time than otherwise-healthy individuals, according to a new study based on patient interviews. The findings highlight a need for long-term psychological support for people with presymptomatic Huntington’s to help them develop proactive coping strategies and…

Brain cells called glia work to protect the brain from damage in Huntington’s disease by reducing the expression of genes involved in maintaining connections between nerve cells, a new study indicates. The findings suggest that targeting glia could be a useful strategy for Huntington’s treatment, and also highlight that…

People with Huntington’s disease who have had more formal education tend to be diagnosed earlier and have milder symptoms than those with less formal education, a new study indicates. The study, “The effect of education on symptom onset and severity of Huntington’s disease,” was published in …

Eurordis opened a campaign, called Rare 2030 Action, that is seeking to establish a European action plan for rare diseases to ensure that none of the 30 million people in Europe living with rare diseases are left behind by the start of a new decade. As part of…

Treatment with tominersen failed to show evidence of clinical benefit in adults with Huntington’s disease during the Phase 3 clinical trial GENERATION HD1. Roche, the company developing tominersen, decided to pause dosing in the clinical trial about a month ago, after a pre-planned review of trial data…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Voyager Therapeutics permission to start a clinical trial testing VY-HTT01, its investigational gene therapy for Huntington’s disease. Voyager is planning to launch the Phase 1/2 clinical trial, called VYTAL, later this year. VYTAL will be a dose-escalation study, meaning that…

A chaperone protein called DnaJB8 has an internal molecular “switch” that likely regulates how cells dispose of protein aggregates, like those that cause Huntington’s disease. These findings were detailed in the study “Regulatory inter-domain interactions influence Hsp70 recruitment to the DnaJB8 chaperone,” published in Nature Communications. Huntington’s is…

A new international consortium, Stem Cells for Huntington’s Disease (SC4HD), has been formed to help facilitate the development of stem cell-based therapies to treat the disorder. The consortium was presented in the Journal of Huntington’s Disease, in the paper, “Stem Cells for Huntington’s Disease (SC4HD): An International…

Note: This story was updated Jan. 14, 2021, to note that pridopidine is no longer called Huntexil.  Treatment with pridopidine can slow the decline in total functional capacity in people with Huntington’s disease, a new analysis of clinical trial data indicate. The findings were published in the Journal…