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New Kind of Drug, Silencing Genes, Gets FDA Approval [Wall Street Journal]
August 11, 2018
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
The following article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on August 10, 2018...
"New Kind of Drug, Silencing Genes, Gets FDA Approval
Alnylam’s Onpattro, approved to treat a rare nerve disorder, features the latest technology for fighting disease
By Peter Loftus
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved the first drug that combats disease by silencing the genes driving it, the newest technology transforming the arsenal of medicines.
Onpattro, from Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc., is the first treatment approved to treat nerve damage caused by a genetic disorder that also causes heart and digestive disease and can be fatal. It is based on Nobel Prize-winning research that drugmakers have had a tough time translating into effective medicines.
The disease is rare, affecting fewer than 5,000 people in the U.S. and 50,000 globally. Yet patients haven’t had the option of an approved treatment. And the drug’s regulatory green light could pave the way for more of these gene-silencing drugs to be OK’d for other, more prevalent diseases, especially in the liver, such as hepatitis B."
Click here to read the full article on The Wall Street Journal Website.
