Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Reata Announces New Preclinical Data Demonstrating the Potential of Omaveloxolone in the Treatment of Friedreich’s Ataxia and Other Severe Neurological Diseases

IRVING, Texas, April 24, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:RETA) (Reata or Company), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced new preclinical data demonstrating that omaveloxolone potently activates the Keap1/Nrf2 pathway, significantly reduces production of reactive oxygen species, and improves mitochondrial function in two different models of severe neurological diseases. These results support the rationale for clinical studies of omaveloxolone in neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disorders, including the ongoing pivotal MOXIe trial in patients with Friedreich’s ataxia.

Patient reported outcome measures in rare diseases: a narrative review

Anita Slade, Fatima Isa, Derek Kyte, Tanya Pankhurst, Larissa Kerecuk, James Ferguson, Graham Lipkin and Melanie Calvert, Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases 2018 13:61 doi:10.1186/s13023-018-0810-x

Rare diseases can lead to a significant reduction in quality of life for patients and their families. Ensuring the patients voice is central to clinical decision making is key to delivering, evaluating and understanding the efficacy of therapeutic interventions. Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are used to capture the patient’s views about their health status and facilitate our understanding of the impact of these diseases and their treatments on patient’s quality of life and symptoms.

Emergence of breath testing as a new non-invasive diagnostic modality for neurodegenerative diseases

N. Siva Subramaniam, C.S. Bawden, H. Waldvogel, R.M.L. Faull, G.S. Howarth, R.G. Snell, , Brain Research, Available online 22 April 2018, ISSN 0006-8993, doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2018.04.017.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) are incapacitating disorders that result in progressive motor and cognitive impairment. These disease include Alzheimer’s disease the most common cause of dementia, frontotemporal dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Friedreich’s ataxia, and prion disease.
The use of breath testing, as a means of monitoring neurodegenerative disease onset and progression, has the potential to have a significant impact on augmenting the diagnosis of NDDs as the approach is non-invasive, relatively cost effective and straight forward to implement. This review highlights key features of current diagnostic methods utilised to identif.