News

Ovid Therapeutics is stopping its clinical program for OV101 (gaboxadol), a candidate therapy for both Angelman and fragile X syndrome, in favor of focusing its resources on OV882, a potential RNA therapy for Angelman patients, it announced in a corporate update. The…

More than half of the people with rare diseases and their caregivers, asked in a survey, were undecided or less than willing to be vaccinated for COVID-19 if a vaccine was approved under emergency use authorization instead of the routine process, the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Disease reports. These findings…

The EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases is accepting applications for a scholarship program that aims to help adults with a rare disease pursue personal goals through training and education. For a second year, the #RAREis Scholarship Fund — supported by Horizon Therapeutics – will award 35 one-time scholarships, each…

Ionis Pharmaceuticals intends to launch a clinical trial later this year to test ION582, a potential Angelman syndrome therapy.  The Phase 1/2a trial, designed to enroll up to 50 patients, is expected to start in the second half of 2021, Ionis wrote in a letter to the…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to BIO017, a candidate therapy for Angelman syndrome being developed by Biom Therapeutics, the company has announced. Orphan drug status is designed to encourage therapies for rare and serious diseases, through benefits such as seven…

As anyone affected by a rare disease knows, treating the illness while trying to go about everyday life is an expensive undertaking.  But exactly how expensive — in terms of direct and indirect costs across rare disease populations — might still come as a surprise: almost…

The Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics, known as FAST, is partnering with the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) to launch the International Angelman Syndrome Research Council — or INSYNC-AS — with a goal to “build community and leverage the combined skills of world leaders in neuroscience, clinical…

A reliable tool for parents or caregivers to judge the quality of nonverbal communication in Angelman syndrome patients is now available, according to the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics (FAST), which supported work that lead to its development. Called Observer-Reported Communication Ability (ORCA), the tool grew from a partnership between FAST and…

Many diseases have their own awareness color — breast cancer is pink, muscular dystrophy is green, and AIDS is red, for example — but what’s the significance of pink, green, blue, and purple lights side-by-side? These are the colors most often used to represent Rare Disease Day. This…

A $200,000 Comcast NBCUniversal grant has been awarded to The Arc to increase access to educational resources for students of color and economically disadvantaged youngsters with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), which can include Angelman syndrome. The award will fund the organization’s community-based The Arc@School initiative to expand its…