If you think back to 2014, you might remember videos scattered across your social media feeds showing your friends standing out in their yards waiting and smiling nervously for the cold shock that was about to hit them.
“My first goal was originally $10,000,” Caroline, a D.H. Conley High School junior said of her ambitious plan for the Shooting Out ALS fundraiser, to be held Saturday in Washington, N.C. “I thought I should just make a big goal, but I ended up passing that. Then I changed it to $15,000 and passed that, and then $20,000 was the next mark.”
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS, is a horrible disease. Last week in a reversal of a decision the FDA made just a few months ago, their external advisory board approved a “novel” drug for ALS. What changed?
Eight years after the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral across social media and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for research, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, company is on the brink of a major breakthrough for ALS patients.
Salming, 71 announced he had ALS last month and it shook up Sweden and the hockey world. He is a highly respected and extremely popular Hall of Fame player. He played almost all of his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he ended his NHL career wearing a Detroit Red Wings uniform. Salming played his final NHL game for Detroit against the Philadelphia Flyers on April 1, 1990.
The Food and Drug Administration advisers voted 7-2 that data from Amylyx Pharma warranted approval, despite ongoing concerns about the strength and reliability of the company’s study. The vote is not binding and the FDA will make its final decision by the end of the month.
Together, these findings add evidence to the hypothesis that a reactivation of the HERV-K virus plays a role in the development of ALS, and that an antibody response against it is protective. These data also suggest the possibility that treatment with a synthetic antibody raised against HERV-K-ENV might have beneficial effects in those persons with ALS who also have evidence of HERV-K reactivation.