News

US Patient Groups Give Thumbs-Up to Rule Against Surprise Billing

The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) is applauding the Biden administration for announcing a rule to protect consumers from surprise medical billing, in a joint statement with 26 other U.S. patient organizations. The interim final rule will implement patient protections required by the No Surprises Act. Surprise…

Depression, Anxiety Common With FAP, Patient Survey Finds

Challenges with mental health often follow a person being told that they carry a mutation that causes familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP), a rare and progressive disease of adulthood, a study reports. “These results highlight the burden of [FAP] for patients and their relatives. Patients, carriers and their relatives and…

Partnership Aims to Lower Out-of-Pocket Costs for Rare Disease Meds

AllianceRx Walgreens Prime, a specialty and home delivery pharmacy, is partnering with TailorMed, a healthcare technology company, to help lower out-of-pocket prescription costs for specialty pharmacy patients. Medications attained through specialty pharmacies are those used to treat rare and chronic conditions in the U.S., and are often extremely costly. For…

Novo Nordisk Acquires Prothena’s PRX004, Plus Full ATTR Program

Novo Nordisk has acquired Prothena’s clinical-stage antibody PRX004, an investigational therapy for people with hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR), which also includes familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP), as well as other non-hereditary forms of the disease. While the company initially will focus on developing PRX004 for the treatment of ATTR…

Nominations Open for 2022 Eurordis Black Pearl Awards

Nominations are now open for the worldwide 2022 Black Pearl Awards from Eurordis-Rare Diseases Europe. The 12 award categories recognize individual advocates, policy makers, researchers, organizations, and companies who work to make a difference for the global rare disease community. The deadline for nominations is Sept. 10…

Early Data Favorable for NTLA-2001 Gene-editing Therapy

A single dose of Intellia Therapeutics’ investigational CRISPR/Cas9-based gene-editing therapy NTLA-2001 safely results in a rapid and strong reduction in the levels of the damaging transthyretin (TTR) protein, according to interim data from the first six familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) patients given the therapy in a Phase…