FDA Approves First Drug for Treatment of Chorea in Huntington’s Disease

kavin submitted, created time 3 months 2 weeks (www.fda.gov)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Xenazine (tetrabenazine) for the treatment of chorea in people with Huntington’s disease. Chorea is the jerky, involuntary movement that occurs in people with this disease.

Xenazine is a new drug and is the first treatment of any kind approved in the United States for any symptom of Huntington’s disease. Currently there are no other drugs that are FDA-approved to treat chorea.

Serious side effects reported with use of Xenazine include depression and suicidal thoughts and actions

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TransMolecular Presents Imaging and Pharmacokinetic Analysis of 131Iodine-TM601 at Society for Nuclear Medicine Meeting

kavin submitted, created time 5 months 2 weeks (www.businesswire.com)

TM601 is a novel synthetic peptide targeting both primary tumors and metastases and it will give us some hope in the battle against cancer. Derived from scorpion venom, TM601 binds to receptors on cancer cells but leaves healthy cells alone. When TM601 is tagged with radioactive iodine, it can deliver a tiny, targeted dose of radiation to cancer cells, killing them while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.

The potential of TM601 is so high that the FDA has granted its iodine-labeled form orphan drug status for patients with malignant gliomas

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