We talked with Dr. Stephen Johnson, postdoctoral fellow from Massachusetts General Hospital, to learn more about his research focused on ways to accelerate discovery of efficacious therapeutics through identification and validation of novel outcome measures using readily available technology.
“We are grateful to Cytokinetics for their partnership and transparency, enabling the global research community to leverage these data in their ongoing analyses and research activities,” said Neil Thakur, Ph.D., Chief Mission Officer at The ALS Association.
The ALS Association has awarded $3.6 million to four interventional trials through its new Clinical Trial Awards program. The Clinical Trial Awards program is open to industry and academic investigators proposing novel or repositioning approaches for ALS.
Biogen, a partner of The ALS Association, recently published promising results from its phase 1–2 Trial of Antisense Oligonucleotide Tofersen for SOD1 ALS and is now actively enrolling participants for their Phase 3 Valor study. It also announced that there is an open-label extension available in the study.
The ALS Association today announced a three-year, $652,543 commitment to support new collaborative initiatives that will encourage therapeutic pipeline development, improve ALS trial efficiency and quality, and enhance the patient experience with trial access, recruitment, and retention efforts. Activities will take place at the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General in collaboration with the Barrow Neurological Institute and the Northeast ALS Consortium (NEALS).
The main goal is to evaluate safety and tolerability. Despite the small size of the study, researchers conducted pre-efficacy measurements to preliminarily understand whether NurOwn has a beneficial effect in people living with ALS or not.
“The results in the study are encouraging providing important data on safety and dosing of the stem cells in study participants,” stated Lucie Bruijn, Ph.D., M.B.A, Chief Scientist of The ALS Association.
Meet Dr. James Connor, an ALS researcher who leads a team at Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA that recently received an ALS Association Investigator-Initiated grant to move his exciting research forward. The ALS Association spoke with Dr. Connor about his investigations into how a therapeutic iron solution is potentially protective in ALS and how collaboration at Hershey bridges the lab and the ALS clinic.
Collaboration is a cornerstone of The ALS Association’s global research program. That’s why The Association hosts an annual ALS Drug Company Working Group that brings together representatives from pharmaceutical companies and academia to discuss how to move ALS research and therapy development forward.