The American Epilepsy Society (AES) meeting is the largest epilepsy meeting of the year, and because it takes place every month of December it also serves as an annual review on the understanding and treatment of epilepsies. These are my main insights from the American Epilepsy Society 2024 meeting.
For the past ten years the Loulou Foundation hosts an annual meeting where scientists and drug developers working on CDKL5 deficiency, together with representatives from patient organizations, meet to discuss the latest advances.
Here are the main news and take-home messages from the 2024 CDKL5 Forum that took place in October 28-29 in Boston
La décima edición del Foro CDKL5 tuvo lugar en Boston, los días 28 y 29 de octubre de 2024. El Foro es una reunión anual que organiza la Fundación Loulou y en la que científicos y miembros de la industria farmacéutica se reúnen con representantes de la comunidad de pacientes para repasar los últimos avances en el campo.
Este es un repaso para los grupos de pacientes de las principales novedades del Foro CDKL5 2024.
Patients with Dravet syndrome caused by missense mutations in SCN1A are candidates for the clinical trials with ASOs and gene therapies to increase SCN1A expression, and will be candidate for this therapies after approval.
The number of orphan products in development keeps growing every year. A particular rare disease will be attractive for a drug development company if it matches one of four main business propositions determined by the interplay of market pressure and technology enablers. The degree of maturity of a field will also attract companies and help prioritize which disease to focus on where multiple rare diseases match the needs of the company or the drug that they are already developing
Most patient organizations, no matter how small, start with the same mission: to raise awareness and funds for research in their disease. But what research are they doing? are they all starting in the same place? and do they all evolve to run the same type of research? In my experience there are many types of strategy and approaches that patient groups take, in particular when they are starting. What a patient organization means when they say “we are doing research”, therefore, hides many different possibilities. The article describes some of these types, and discusses their advantages and disadvantages.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES - The field of rare diseases, where each disease affects only hundreds or thousands of patients world-wide, is leading this revolution. Their diseases were once orphan to medicine, too rare to receive sufficient attention and investment to move the needle. Today patients take ownership of their research fields, and move the needle themselves. They have become the center of the network and the expert in the room. They are impatient, not wanting to wait for pharma to take an interest in their disease. They are impatient patients and are leading an impatient revolution.
Every other year the International League Against Epilepsy organises a major epilepsy medical congress in Europe called the European Congress on Epilepsy (ECE). This year I attended the main three days of the ECE addition in Vienna, looking at the field partly as a drug developer and partly as a patient advocate working on behalf of rare epilepsy patient communities. Here is the list of what I found the most interesting at the ECE 2018 meeting.
Dravet syndrome pipeline review 2018 - Summary in Spanish for Dravet families.
Los avances en torno al tratamiento del síndrome de Dravet en los últimos años han seguido pasos agigantados. En los últimos 5 años hemos experimentado una explosión en el número de programas en desarrollo para tratar la enfermedad: de tener solo Diacomit y nada más a tener Diacomit y 14 más en desarrollo. Este texto es un resumen en Español del Dravet syndrome pipeline review 2018 dirigido a familias, con el texto no solo traducido sino también ajustado a los intereses de aquellos que tienen un hijo/a con síndrome de Dravet y su entorno.
The 2018 Dravet Syndrome Pipeline and Opportunities Review provides a review and analysis of 14 drug candidates in development for the treatment of Dravet syndrome, including 9 products that have received orphan drug designations. It also includes an analysis of the competitive landscape and evaluates current and future opportunities of the Dravet syndrome market.
