A candidate treatment for Huntington’s disease has been selected by the European Medicines Agency for PRIME, a programme of regulatory support for developers of medicines that meet a major public health need. The drug, RG6042, is an antisense oligonucleotide.
It is being developed jointly by Roche and Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc to slow or stop the progress of Huntington’s disease, a rare genetic disorder that causes nerve cells in the brain to break down. Over time, people with the disease can develop personality changes and have difficulty walking and swallowing.