Ice Bucket Challenge: a charity relay for ALS patients

Recently, the United States whipped up a whirlwind about ice bucket challenge. Ice bucket challenge is a public benefit activity aims at getting more concern about ALS disease from the public through the influence of celebrities. Till now, many elites from the Wall Street and Silicon Valley have accepted the challenge.

ALS disease, with the full name of amyotrophic side sclerosis, is also referred to as motor neurone disorder (MND), Charcot disorder, and, in the United States, Lou Gehrig's disease. This is an incurable and fatal disease. One of the famous victims of this disorder is Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist who is the author of ‘Brief History of Time’.

According to statistics, ALS disease is a motor neuron disease, patients often died three to five years after they suffering from this disease. ALS prevalence is 5/100 000 to 7/100 000 in most countries, even reach up 40/10 000, Guam is the highest incidence area of this disease. The disease is mainly caused by genetic, such as mutation. To date, a number of genetic mutations have been associated with various types of ALS. The currently known associations are shown in the following table. At the same time, inconclusive evidence indicated that some potential causes, such as head trauma, military service, and participation in contact sports, may also cause ALS.

At present, Rilutek, approved by FDA in 1996, is the first and only FDA-approved drug for ALS.

According to the report of MarketWatch website on August 21, the popular "Ice Bucket Challenge" around the world has raised $ 40 million in donations in the past two months. In recently, the donation has been put in 21 newly approved pharmaceutical research and development projects. A number of biotechnology companies will receive financial support and drive the stock price to rise. The following are five companies that derived benefit from the "Ice Bucket Challenge".

American biopharmaceutical company Biogen Idec: Although the experimental drug dexpramipexole developed by this company did not show any efficacy in Phase III clinical trials in 2013, but the company said they will conduct the new R & D work in use of existing test data. The company's shares rose in July by 12.5%.

Avanir Pharmaceutical, Inc: In this year's phase III clinical trial, the developing drug Nuedexta of this company showed a positive effect for the treatment of pseudobulbar palsy, which has some symptoms similar to ALS. The company's shares rose in July by 6.8%.

Isis Pharmaceutical, Ins: The drug that Isis took three years to develop has proved to be effective in preventing genetic variation. ALS is generally considered closely related to gene mutations. Isis’s share rose 20% in January.

Sanofi: Rilutek, the first and only FDA-approved drug for ALS treatment, is produced by Sanofi.

Bristol-Meyers Squibb: The Company has an advantage in the study of immune regulation, which provides more possibility to ALS treatment.

Numerologist Warda is hooked on OG-L002 fishing, collecting. And lastly her encouragement comes from socializing along with her companions.