News

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to FT011, an experimental oral medication that Certa Therapeutics is developing as a treatment for systemic sclerosis. The FDA gives this designation to investigational treatments for rare diseases, those affecting fewer than 200,000 people…

Kyverna Therapeutics is launching a Phase 1/2 trial to evaluate its investigational cell therapy KYV-101 in adults with diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (dcSSc). The move follows the therapy’s recent clearance of an investigational new drug (IND) application by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The trial, called…

Boehringer Ingelheim has joined the CONQUEST platform trial, adding a second experimental medication to the multidrug study launched by the Scleroderma Research Foundation (SRF) to speed therapy development for interstitial lung disease (ILD) associated with scleroderma (SSc). In a platform trial, a master protocol is used…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Cabaletta Bio’s request to begin clinical testing of CABA-201, a cell therapy for adults with hard-to-treat systemic sclerosis (SSc). Cabaletta now plans to launch a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, enrolling SSc patients with severe skin manifestations or organ…

A prediction tool known as nomogram may be used to calculate the chance of a person with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and interstitial lung disease (ILD) developing progressive pulmonary fibrosis, or worsening lung scarring, a new study suggests. The nomogram essentially is a pictorial representation of a complex mathematical…

Blood levels of interleukin (IL)-6, a pro-inflammatory signaling molecule, do not link with a risk of pulmonary involvement in people with systemic sclerosis (SSc), a study reports. As a result, IL-6 “could not be regarded as a potential therapeutic target,” the researchers wrote in the study, “…

Arsenic trioxide (ATO) lowered lung inflammation and disease-related alterations to blood vessels in the lungs in a mouse model of scleroderma (SSc), a study reports. “Our study provides compelling evidence of the positive effects of ATO treatment on lung function in a mouse model of SSc,” researchers wrote in…

Antibodies designed to neutralize the protein galectin-3 (Gal-3) eased scarring and inflammation in a mouse model of systemic sclerosis (SSc), a recent study shows. Gene activity related to Gal-3 and the proteins it interacts with were found to be strongly associated with disease severity, lung and heart malfunction, and…

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD) have a higher risk of death when compared with individuals with SSc alone, according to a new population-based study conducted in Denmark. The presence of additional co-occurring disorders, or comorbidities, other than ILDs, was found to gradually increase the risk of…

People with diffuse systemic sclerosis (dcSSc) — a form of scleroderma that typically involves more extensive skin damage — have key cellular differences depending on the specific self-reactive antibody they have, and on how far along the disease trajectory they are, according to a new study. These differences were…