Latest Iron overload Stories

HEIDELBERG, Germany, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Apogenix GmbH, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel protein therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases, announced today that its lead product, Apocept(TM) (APG101), has been granted orphan drug designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). MDS are clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorders characterized by ineffective...

EAST HANOVER, N.J., January 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Novartis announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Exjade(®) (deferasirox) for the treatment of chronic iron overload in patients 10 years of age and older with non-transfusion-dependent thalassemia (NTDT) syndromes and with a liver iron concentration of at least 5 mg of iron per gram dry weight and a serum ferritin measurement greater than 300 micrograms per liter. Exjade is the first...

AMSTERDAM, June 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- "There is a large potential opportunity for saving lives by early identification of cardiac iron loading in Thalassemia patients", declares Professor John-Paul Carpenter of the Royal Brompton CMR Unit in London at the 17th Congress of the European Hematology Association in Amsterdam. Thalassemia major (TM) is a substantial health issue, with over 25,000 new transfusion-dependent children identified each year around the world. In...

DUBLIN, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire FerroKin BioSciences, Inc., for an upfront payment of $100 million, payable in cash at closing, plus potential post-closing milestone payments of up to $225 million, depending upon the achievement of certain clinical development, regulatory and net sales targets. - A strategic step...

EAST HANOVER, N.J., Dec. 13, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Results from THALASSA, the first pivotal placebo-controlled study examining the benefit of iron chelation with Exjade(®) (deferasirox) in patients with non-transfusion-dependent thalassemia (NTDT), show that Exjade can significantly reduce iron overload. These data were presented today at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology in San Diego. THALASSA investigated whether patients with NTDT and iron...

Multiple organs, including the liver and the heart, become damaged if an individual has an excessive amount of iron in their body. Treatments for iron overload are arduous and/or have severe side effects. A team of researchers led by Elizabeta Nemeth, at the University of California, Los Angeles, has now generated data in mice that suggest that they have designed a promising new approach to reducing iron overload. Iron overload is a hallmark of the genetic disease hereditary...

Iron overload is a common condition affecting millions of people worldwide. Excess iron in the body is toxic, and deposits can cause damage to the liver, heart and other organs. Current treatments, researchers say, are not ideal and have significant side effects. Iron in the body is regulated by a hormone called hepcidin, and a deficiency in this hormone can cause the iron overload seen in genetic disorders like hereditary hemochromatosis and Cooley's anemia. In the hopes of finding a...

Iron overload is a common and serious problem in thalassemic major patients. As iron accumulation is toxic in the body's tissues, accurate estimation of iron stores is of great importance in these patients to prevent iron overload by an appropriate iron chelating therapy. Liver biopsy is the gold standard for evaluating iron stores but it is an invasive method which is not easily repeatable in patients. Introduction of other more applicable methods seems to be necessary.A research article...

2 new studies illustrate how hepcidin affects beta-thalassemia and hemochromatosis diseasesA hormone made by the body may be a potential therapeutic tool for the treatment of two anemic blood disorders -- beta-thalassemia and hemochromatosis. The new research was led by scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and the journal Blood.Commonly known as Cooley's anemia, beta-thalassemia affects nearly 1,000 individuals in the United...

Beta-thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that results in chronic anemia. A major complication of the condition is iron overload, which damages organs such as the liver and heart. The iron overload has been linked to low levels of the protein hepcidin, a negative regulator of intestinal iron absorption and iron recycling. A team of researchers, led by Stefano Rivella, at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, has now shown that increasing the concentration of hepcidin in...