News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Soliris (eculizumab) as a treatment for adults with a particular type of generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG) — the first time in more than 60 years that it has authorized a therapy for the disease. Alexion Pharmaceuticals, which developed Solaris, said the…

Researchers have juvenile myasthenia gravis (MG) to a specific variant, or allele, of the HLA gene among Norwegians. Their study, “Juvenile myasthenia gravis in Norway: HLA-DRB1*04:04 is positively associated with prepubertal onset,” appeared in the journal PLOS ONE. The disease mechanism that causes MG is complex, as it…

More therapies are now available for the 30 million or so people with rare diseases in the U.S. than ever before, and millions of dollars are being invested in clinical studies that will test new ways of evaluating — and advancing — potential treatments, including the use of natural history…

Alteration of eye movement due to muscle weakness is not uncommon among patients with myasthenia gravis (MG). But now researchers at University of Cape Town (UCT) have identified the main characteristics of patients with juvenile-onset MG and of African genetic ancestry who present ocular manifestations associated with MG and do…

As Congress begins debate this week to overhaul the U.S. tax code, lawmakers should leave the Orphan Drug Act (ODA) — and the tax incentives it offers pharmaceutical companies to develop therapies for rare diseases — off the table. That’s the message being pushed by the National Organization for…

Myasthenic crisis is a common complication in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG), marked by exacerbation of MG symptoms and respiratory failure. But with the rarity of MG, and its similarity to a range of other neuromuscular diseases, proper detection and treatment might fail, researchers argue. To make it easier for…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted orphan drug status to ARGX-113, a potential treatment for myasthenia gravis, its developer argenx said in a press release. MG is an autoimmune disease triggered by immunoglobulin G auto-antibodies, or IgGs. They attack critical signaling proteins at the junction between nerve and…

Researchers have found that the drug ONX-0914 halts disease progression in an animal model of myasthenia gravis by altering immune responses. The study, “ONX-0914, a selective inhibitor of immunoproteasome, ameliorates experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis by modulating humoral response,” was published in the Journal of Neuroimmunology. The buildup of…

Scabies infection boosts one’s risk of developing myasthenia gravis (MG), new research from Taiwan shows. The study, “The association between scabies and myasthenia gravis: A nationwide population-based cohort study,” appeared in the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience. Scabies is an infectious, highly contagious skin disease caused by the mite…

Women with myasthenia gravis (MG) have a poorer quality of life than male patients. That’s the conclusion of a study named “Best Abstract Award” winner at the 2017 American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) Annual Meeting in Phoenix. Specifically, the study, which used Patient Registry data from the…