Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 14, 1995 TAG: 9506140087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: San Francisco Chronicle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Researchers from the Chiron Corporation of Emeryville and Cephalon Inc. of West Chester, Pa., said their new drug had slowed the deterioration of patient's movement and speech by 25 percent.
The companies plan to ask for ``fast-track'' approval by the Food and Drug Administration, which means the drug could be on the market by late 1996.
``It is not a cure,'' Cephalon chief executive Frank Baldino Jr. said Monday, ``but it is a major first step.''
Since first identified by a French physician in 1869, the disease known to scientists as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, has remained one of medicine's darkest mysteries - a horrifying ailment of unknown origin that weakens, cripples and eventually kills its victims, who remain fully cognizant of their plight to the end.
Until now, doctors had no more hope of treating the disease than they did in 1941, when it claimed Yankee baseball great Lou Gehrig, and the rare and nearly unpronounceable syndrome became forever attached to his name.
About 30,000 Americans have the degenerative disease and 5,000 new cases are diagnosed every year. Seventy Lou Gehrig's disease sufferers are registered with the MDA Roanoke District, which represents 28 counties in Southwest Virginia.
by CNB