Marsha or whomever may know,

I have been doing reseach for treatment, and I have come across vitravene, a rna therapy, it looks like it is in pre-clinical right now, how long does pre-clinical last, months? years? and does anyone have info on vitravene? Thanks so much.

Is this what you are referring to rj ?

[curehd.blogspot.com].

These antisence agents might be the answer, here's hoping.

Vitravene is an antisense therapy for AIDS. It has already been approved by the FDA. It would have no effect on Huntington's Disease. However, Isis is working on an antisense therapy for HD with support from CHDI. The research is still in the preclinical stages and I don't have any sense of when it might be ready for a Phase I clinical trial. Two obstacles to be overcome are 1) figuring out the optimal time in which both the normal protein and the HD protein can be shut down. The idea here is that the brain can probably deal with the absence of the normal protein for awhile and that the cells could at least partially recover from the effects of the HD protein if it was shut down for awhile.

2) delivery, delivery, delivery. The last I heard CHDI was working with Medtronics for a pump delivery system that would deliver the drug through the spinal cord. An antisense drug cannot (at this point) be taken as a pill.