Overcoming Progression Heterogeneity

ALS progression is extremely heterogeneous among patients.  While the average life expectancy of a patient living with ALS is 3-5 years after diagnosis, many patients survive only a few months, while still others live with the disease for decades.  This heterogeneity of progression creates huge challenges for the pharmaceutical industry.  Patients who progress at highly variable rates confound traditional statistical analyses, and require trials to be larger and costlier, thus increasing risks for drug developers and investors.  This phenomenon is a key driver behind why there have been no new ALS drugs approved by the FDA since 1995, while in the same period of time over 30 potential ALS drugs have failed in late stage 2 and stage 3 clinical trials.

Our Expertise

Origent has significant expertise understanding and modeling the progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis for individual patients.  In 2012, Sentrana participated in the DREAM Phil Bowen ALS Prediction Prize4Life Challenge, sponsored by Prize4Life, an organization formed for the purpose of accelerating the discovery of treatments and a cure for ALS.  The objective of participants in this challenge was to develop a disease progression algorithm for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.  Among 1,073 teams in the competition, Sentrana was awarded a first-place award for its disease progression model and was singled-out for its success at predicting individual patients.

Predictive Models for ALS

In addition to modeling ALSFRS and ALSFRS-R scores (common endpoints for ALS clinical trials), Origent has developed progression models that focus on targeted symptoms of the disease, such as bulbar, respiratory, and limb functions.  Our portfolio of existing ALS models includes:

• ALSFRS total score
• ALSFRS-R total score
• Respiratory function
• Bulbar function
• Upper Limb function
• Body/Trunk function
• Lower Limb function