Invest in ALS?

"The ALS market was worth 148m in 2006" according to an investment paper.

The ALS market was worth $148m in 2006 across the seven major markets. With the only approved treatment for ALS, Sanofi-Aventis''s Rilutek (riluzole), facing generic incursion in 2012-13, future growth in this market is dependent on the success of pipeline drugs.

Scope

Scenario based analysis and forecasts of the commercial potential of the ALS market to 2016.
Analysis of
patient potential, marketing factors, commercial attractiveness and clinical attractiveness of key late-stage pipeline drugs.
Strategic recommendations for maximizing the potential of drugs in this niche orphan disease market.
Indication-specific sales forecasts of marketed and key pipeline drugs to 2016.

Highlights

A lack of new entrants, and the possibility of polytherapy, results in Sanofi-Aventis''s Rilutek (riluzole) dominating the market until patent expiry in 2012-13 in Datamonitor''s base scenario.

Orphan drug status, rapid uptake following launch, limited risk to the company''s share price if drugs fail, and possible indication expansions make long-term investment in ALS a commercially viable option.

A scenario forecast based on the clinical success of rhIGF-1 (recombinant human insulin-like growth factor I) related therapies reveals a potentially lucrative market. However, with a high attrition rate of ALS Phase III clinical trials, and mixed efficacy data in Phase II, the results of currently underway studies will be pivotal.

Reasons to Purchase

Access the lucrative potential of this underdeveloped neurodegenerative disease therapeutic market.
Benchmark key late-stage compounds against the current leading therapy Sanofi-Aventis''s Rilutek (riluzole).
Understand the opportunities in this market based on the comments of interviewed key opinion leaders.

www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/Pipeline-Insig ..

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"She's Dying. His drug could save her"

From The Hook.

Mary Jane Gentry is going to die, and the UVA Health Sciences
Center, which has saved countless lives, has pulled away the experimental drug
that might save her.
"It was a ray of hope," she says, "and then they
stopped it."
When she was diagnosed 18 months ago with an aggressive case of
"Lou Gehrig's disease," Gentry knew it was a death sentence. Doctors told her
she had less than three years to live.
Desperate, Gentry-- herself a nurse
at UVA-- agreed to participate in a novel drug study. After eight weeks, she was
thrilled by a sign that the disease not only seemed to have slowed, but might
actually be reversing. She could suddenly move her left hand, which had been
useless for several months.
And her experience wasn't isolated: nearly half
of the study patients reported noticeable improvements in their condition while
none reported side effects.
So why did UVA halt the study?

Click on the link for the full story. Read more!

Lithium - Could It Be The Stopper?

A surprising result in the fight against ALS.

Italian researchers claim to have stopped ALS
dead in its tracks.
By stopped, they mean no progression.
By ALS, we
mean the incurable disease for which there has been no significant medical
breakthrough.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, no slouch
as scientific journals go, has accepted the researchers' paper for publication.
We should see the details of their possibly landmark study in early February, a
journal spokeswoman said.
I want to avoid overstating the significance of
these findings from what is, after all, only a single, small clinical trial.
But on its face, it's significant.
Sixteen ALS patients were given two
drugs: Riluzole, the generic name for the only drug approved for treating ALS,
and lithium, a mood
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stabilizer
used for bipolar disorder and depression.
Another 32 patients took only the
Riluzole.
The patients - 16 on lithium and 32 not - were watched and
evaluated over a period of 15 months.
The results of the trial were
announced in early November at a Parkinson's disease conference in Italy. News
of the findings was carried in an Italian science journal.
At the end of the
15 months, 30 percent of the group not taking lithium had died. Those who
remained suffered on average 50 percent decline.
This is what one would
expect with ALS.
For those taking lithium, however, there were no deaths.
Additionally, the ALS patients taking lithium experienced no meaningful disease
progression, according to Francesco Fornai of the University of Pisa.
Eight
of the 16 were diagnosed with the more aggressive bulbar form of ALS that
attacks the motor nerves for talking, eating and breathing early on, Fornai
pointed out. They would be expected to die more quickly.
Two years after
starting on lithium, only two had died, one from a heart attack and the other,
who suffered from an advanced case of bulbar to begin with, from ALS-related
causes.
The rest remained stable with no progression.

Fullstory at http://www.sbsun.com/ci_8089973?source=most_emailed.

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