LIRH Annual Conference 2020: The Current treatment Perspectives for Huntington Disease
07/12/2020
This is the title of LIRH Foundation Annual Conference, which will take place online on Saturday 12 December from 10.00 to 13.00 am (CEST)
Also this year, on time like every other year, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the main clinical trials on Huntington's disease; a rare disease still lacking of a definitive cure, but towards which interest is strongly growing on the part of both researchers and the pharmaceutical industry.
The Huntington’s disease community is undoubtedly experiencing an unprecedented historical phase full of good news.
Exactly 20 years have gone by since the first multinational, multicentre, controlled, double-blind therapeutic trial that ever involved our Country was conducted; thanks to Dr. Ferdinando Squitieri, LIRH Foundation Scientific Director and Head of the Huntington Unit at IRCCS Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza/CSS-Mendel. From that moment on, a brand new interest towards therapeutic trials emerged.
Back then, the mentioned clinical trial had the aim of testing the efficacy of Riluzole, a potential disease modifier, in slowing down the disease progression.
Today, after 20 years, efforts have multiplied with attempts to act directly against the main cause of the disease, the huntingtin protein, by reducing its concentration in the central nervous system.
Many pharmaceutical companies are moving towards this direction with different technologies. The annual conference will host speakers from some of the main ones such as Roche, Wave Life Sciences and uniQure. There will also be important contributions from Vaccinex, which will present data on a trial with a monoclonal antibody and Prilenia, which is about to start, also in our Country, a phase 3 trial with pridopidine, a potential neuroprotective drug.
"Invisibility", "heredity", "personality modification", "mood swings", "uncertainty", "isolation", "secrecy", "rarity", "stigma": these are the most common words with which patients still identify themselves. LIRH Foundation annual Conference is, above all, directed to all of them, who will open the debate.
"We strongly encourage the participation to the clinicians, researchers and health professionals interested in learning about the scenarios that will open up if the tested molecules become authorized drugs and all of those involved in the rare diseases community in our country" - says Barbara D'Alessio, President of the Italian Huntington Research League Foundation.
To participate, you must register on the LIRH Foundation website https://bit.ly/2VVRHc6
Simultaneous translation from both Italian/English and English/Italian will be available during the event.