Nature Medicine | Spoonful of Medicine
New drug pathways under investigation for ALS
A diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is considered a life sentence. Most people with the neurodegenerative disease, which attacks the neurons responsible for motor control, only survive two or three years after their diagnosis — and 5,000 such diagnoses are made each year in the US alone. Despite the need, however, there is only a single drug on the market that targets ALS: Rilutek (riluzole), made by France’s Sanofi. But this agent only prolongs life by two or three months on average.
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