MIT Professor Mark Bear traces the discoveries that give us great optimism of finding effective treatments and ultimately a cure for Fragile X syndrome.
Seven years ago, arbaclofen (STX209) was pulled from development, disappointing families around the US. Now MIT professor and FRAXA Investigator Dr. Mark Bear has founded Allos Pharma to bring it back. Dr. Bear sat down with FRAXA co-founder Katie Clapp to share the story and next steps.
Experience the revival of arbaclofen as Allos Pharma Inc launches a new development program, providing renewed hope for the Fragile X community. Discover the impact of this experimental drug and the determination of those who never gave up.
Healx has secured $56M in new financing to build a clinical-stage portfolio for rare diseases, including treatments for Fragile X syndrome, and to launch a global Rare Treatment Accelerator program. Where the traditional drug discovery model takes more than a decade and can run into the billions of dollars, Healx’s AI-driven approach makes the process faster, more efficient and cost-effective.
FRAXA funded MIT work to probe tolerance to key Fragile X drugs, including mGluR5 inhibitors and arbaclofen, and to identify ways to sustain long-term treatment benefits.
FRAXA Research Foundation was founded in 1994 to fund biomedical research aimed at finding a cure for Fragile X syndrome and, ultimately, autism. We prioritize translational research with the potential to lead to improved treatments for Fragile X in the near term. Our early efforts involved supporting a great deal of basic neuroscience to understand the cause of Fragile X. By 1996, these efforts had already begun to yield results useful for drug repurposing. To date, FRAXA has funded well over $25 million in research, with over $3 million of that for repurposing existing drugs for Fragile X.
Our sons with Fragile X Syndrome typically go to bed early and rise early. Sometimes they jump on us while we are sleeping at 3 a.m., excited to start their day. For heaven’s sake, why? The answer may come from Carolyn Beebe Smith, PhD, senior investigator, Section on Neuroadaptation and Protein Metabolism, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. She is studying why children, in particularly boys, with FXS have problems sleeping.
by Michael Tranfaglia, MD. In my opinion, the Fragile X clinical trials of AFQ056 sponsored by Novartis failed because of a dose range that was inadequate for Fragile X, and because of the unexpected development of tolerance.
FRAXA funding helped identify reliable social behavior tests in Fragile X mice and showed an mGluR5 treatment could improve sociability, guiding future trials.
Phase 2b clinical trial of Arbaclofen in Autism Seaside Therapeutics reports the study did not show improvement on the primary endpoint of social withdrawal, but it did demonstrate improvement on the Clinical Global Impression of Severity scale.
