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Abeona Therapeutics’ experimental gene therapy ABO-101 for people diagnosed with Sanfilippo syndrome type B has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company is currently enrolling eligible patients at sites across the U.S. and Spain for its Phase 1/2 trial. Fast Track designation is intended to…

Madeline Collin, a 24-year-old activist with Gaucher disease, worries that patients like her will suffer deeply if Britain leaves the European Union (EU), as scheduled, at the end of this month. Collin is an expert on the subject. For her University of Bathdissertation, she analyzed Brexit’s long-term impact…

With each new advance in medicine comes ethical dilemmas, from fertility treatments and newborn screening, to vaccinations, gene therapies and euthanasia. But rare diseases and the expensive therapies needed to treat them — particularly in an age of scarce economic resources — almost always entail “tragic choices,” warned Avraham Steinberg,…

Siblings of terminally ill children need more support to deal with loss, said the founder of a support website who presented at the 15th Annual WorldSymposium for lysosomal disorders, which includes Sanfilippo syndrome. When a child dies from an illness, “the loss is rarely discussed, and siblings are often overlooked,”…

Rare diseases affect about 30 million Americans — roughly the same number as those with type 2 diabetes. Yet only 5 percent of the estimated 7,000 rare diseases known to science have cures or treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Raising awareness of those illnesses and highlighting…

The world’s biggest gathering of rare disease researchers, patient groups, pharmaceutical executives, and government officials is planned for April 10–12 in a Washington, D.C., suburb. Some 1,200 people have already registered to attend the World Orphan Drug Congress (WODC) USA 2019, set to take place at the Gaylord National Harbor…