People with refractory myasthenia gravis — those whose symptoms persist after treatment — are more likely to miss working hours and to be unemployed than those whose disease responds to treatment and are nonrefractory, a study found. The study, “Employment in refractory myasthenia gravis: A Myasthenia…

Cladribine, a medication for relapsing multiple sclerosis, eased symptoms and reduced the need for high-dosage corticosteroids in people with treatment-resistant myasthenia gravis, a small study shows. The study, titled “Cladribine in myasthenia gravis: a pilot open‐label study,” was published in the European Journal of Neurology.

Rare disease-themed videos glowed on a large screen before an audience of people in wheelchairs, with crutches, and bearing oxygen tanks this Nov. 9 and 10 in San Francisco. Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival strives to eventually host a film about every one of the nearly 7,000 rare…

Amneal has signed a licensing agreement with Kashiv BioSciences to develop and potentially commercialize K127, an extended-release tablet of pyridostigmine, for the treatment of myasthenia gravis (MG) in the United States. The deal offers Amneal exclusive rights over K127 development and marketing in the U.S. and the…

A first clinical trial of Descartes-08, a CAR T-cell therapy for people with generalized myasthenia gravis (GMG) by Cartesian Therapeutics, is enrolling patients. CAR T-cell therapies have shown promise in multiple cancer types, but this study is believed to be the first test of their safety and efficacy in…

For people with thymomas, certain risk factors, such as clusters of developing B-cells, called germinal centers, in their thymuses, may make them more likely to develop myasthenia gravis (MG), a study suggests. Other factors that may contribute to MG development in people with thymomas include higher levels of…

Children with ocular myasthenia gravis respond well to treatment, as largely do children with generalized myasthenia gravis, according to a single-site study that found no “significant differences” in response rates. Still, half of its 22 ocular patients achieved remission, its researchers said. Children with ocular disease are also diagnosed at…

Surgical removal of the thymus before the development of generalized myasthenia gravis is associated with higher remission rates in people with ocular myasthenia gravis (OMG) compared with patients who underwent the surgery after their disease generalized, a new study suggests. The study, titled “Thymectomy in ocular…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $7.8 million for the launch of a rare disease network, called MGNet, to drive research in myasthenia gravis and which will be led by experts from George Washington University, Yale University, and Duke University. The network…

Current patient- and physician-reported measures of disease severity and clinical response effectively reflect rapid improvements associated with plasma exchange in myasthenia gravis (MG) patients, a study reports. These findings support the use of these MG-specific outcome measures in clinical trials of rapidly effective therapies for MG, such as plasma…