News

The first person has been enrolled in a clinical trial evaluating the investigational therapy bermekimab in adults with scleroderma, XBiotech, the developer of bermekimab, announced. Although the cause of scleroderma is unknown, the disease is thought to be at least partly driven by abnormally high levels of an inflammatory…

Blocking the activity of estrogen may worsen skin fibrosis in people with scleroderma, according to a study in mice. Researchers from the Paris Descartes University, in France, believe that a lack of estrogen’s beneficial effects may help explain why scleroderma more commonly affects women after menopause — when…

Raynaud’s Association is launching several activities during October to raise awareness about Raynaud’s phenomenon, and help those affected by the condition. Either in its primary form, or linked to other illnesses such as scleroderma, Raynaud’s is characterized by discoloration of the fingers and toes, with reduced sensitivity…

A modified version of the inflammatory protein TRAIL might be able to reverse fibrosis in scleroderma and related conditions, a study suggests. The study, titled “Targeting of dermal myofibroblasts through death receptor 5 arrests fibrosis in mouse models of scleroderma,” was published in the journal Nature…

Next month’s annual conference of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) in Washington, D.C., couldn’t come at a better time, says Marshall Summar, MD, chairman of NORD’s board of directors. “The pace of discovery in rare diseases has gone from brisk to hypersonic,” Summar told Bionews Services, publisher…

Processa Pharmaceuticals  announced it has entered into a global licensing agreement with Akashi Therapeutics to possibly develop and market HT-100, Akashi’s candidate to treat diseases associated with tissue fibrosis (scarring) and inflammation, including scleroderma. HT-100 is an experimental, oral small molecule reported to have strong anti-inflammatory…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Ofev (nintedanib) as the first therapy to slow lung function decline in people with interstitial lung disease (ILD) associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc-ILD), Boehringer Ingelheim announced. SSc affects multiple systems in the body, causing progressive, widespread fibrosis (tissue scarring). Within…

People with systemic scleroderma (SSc) can be prone to problems in the small airways, which can contribute to the cases of lung disease observed in this population, new research found. Airway dysfunction can be detected by impulse oscillometry, a noninvasive and simple…

Rare diseases deeply affect not only the children who experience them, but also their healthy brothers and sisters, as their parents can attest.    Two entries in November’s “Disorder: The Rare Disease Film Festival” will focus on what siblings go through, according to the San Francisco festival’s co-founder,…

Developing gene therapies for rare diseases is one thing. Creating gene-edited “designer babies” is quite another. German legal expert Timo Minssen outlined the potentially explosive ethical landmines surrounding such issues during a recent talk at the New York Genome Center. Minssen directs the Center for Advanced Studies in…