News

At least 800 people representing some 45 countries are soon expected to gather in Austria’s capital city, Vienna, for ECRD 2018, the 9th European Conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Products. The May 10-12 meeting is sponsored by Eurordis, the Paris-based group that defines itself as a “patient-driven alliance”…

An investigative oral medication called ZX008 was seen to effectively reduce the frequency of seizures in children and adolescents with Dravet syndrome, including those who had not responded to prior therapies, and may come to offer  “a new treatment option.” These findings were given in two scientific posters during the…

An advisory committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recommended approval of Epidiolex, an oral cannabidiol medicine, to treat two rare forms of severe epilepsy. The unanimous April 19 vote is non-binding, but makes it more likely that the FDA will decide on June 27 to give…

Continuous use of antiepileptic medications leads to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to a recent study. These findings may have implications for the treatment of Dravet syndrome, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, and other disorders. The study, “Use of Antiepileptic Drugs and Dementia Risk — an…

People with different types of epilepsy have significant brain structure abnormalities, including alterations in the thickness and volume of the gray matter of several regions of the brain, according to a large-scale analysis. Scientists in the international research consortium ENIGMA performed the largest neuroimaging analysis of epilepsy to date…

A little-known government entity within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is helping to lead U.S. efforts to speed up the development of therapies for some 7,000 rare diseases. The Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR), headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, was established in 1993 within the NIH Office of the…

Two teenage girls with Dravet syndrome became seizure-free after starting contraceptive hormonal therapies containing synthetic estrogen and progesterone, according to a recent case report. The girls had begun taking a birth control pill (patient 1) or received a contraceptive implant (patient 2) at the ages of…

Current first-line therapies for Dravet syndrome have limited effectiveness, but treatment candidates now undergoing clinical testing show significant promise, researchers suggest in a recent review. The study, “Treatment Strategies for Dravet Syndrome,” was published in the journal CNS Drugs. Accurate diagnosis of Dravet syndrome is possible within the…

Biscayne Neurotherapeutics has licensed the Chinese rights to its investigative antiepileptic therapy BIS-001ER to Global Drug Development Centre (GDCC) China in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Biscayne is developing BIS-001ER to treat refractory forms of focal epilepsy, including catastrophic pediatric-onset epilepsies such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox Gastaut. “BIS-001ER is…

Raising a child with Dravet syndrome is hard enough without the added stress of fighting with insurance companies to cover the expensive medications such kids need to stay alive. Beth Fox ought to know. Her 9-year-old daughter, Brenna, has Dravet — a rare, catastrophic, lifelong form of drug-resistant epilepsy that…