In 1948, Vincent Tabone (who was later to become the President of Malta) was entrusted with the supervision of a campaign in Malta to treat trachoma using sulfonamide tablets and drops.Due to improved sanitation and overall living conditions, trachoma virtually disappeared from the industrialized world by the 1950s, though it continues to plague the developing world to this day. Epidemiological studies were conducted in 1956–63 by the Trachoma Control Pilot Project in India under the Indian Council for Medical Research. This potentially blinding disease remains endemic in the poorest regions of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and in some parts of Latin America and Australia. Currently, 8 million people are visually impaired as a result of trachoma, and 41 million have an active infection. Of the 54 countries that the WHO cited as still having blinding trachoma occurring, Australia is the only developed country—Australian Aboriginal people who live in remote communities with inadequate sanitation are still blinded by this infectious eye disease.Indias Health and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda declared India free of infective trachoma in 2017. Etymology
The term is derived from New Latin trāchōma, from Greek τράχωμα trākhōma, from τραχύς trākhus "rough". Economics
The economic burden of trachoma is huge, particularly with regard to covering treatment costs and productivity losses as a result of increased visual impairment, and in some cases, permanent blindness. The global estimated cost of trachoma is reported between $US2.9 and 5.3 billion each year.
Eliglustat, sold under the brand name Cerdelga, is a medication used for the treatment of Gauchers disease. It was discovered at the University of Michigan, developed by Genzyme Corp, and was approved by the FDA in August 2014. Commonly used as the tartrate salt, the compound is believed to work by inhibition of glucosylceramide synthase. According to an article in Journal of the American Medical Association the oral substrate reduction therapy resulted in "significant improvements in spleen volume, hemoglobin level, liver volume, and platelet count" in untreated adults with Gaucher disease Type 1. History
Norman Radin began exploring the possibility of inhibiting the synthesis of lipid substrates involved in Gauchers disease as early as 1982, and, in collaboration with the laboratory of Jim Shayman, found several candidate inhibitors in the mid-1990s. Genzyme initially rejected the candidates developed by Radin and Shayman, but after a news broke of a competitor developing a new treatment for Gauchers disease, licensed the Radin/Shayman patents in 2000. Eliglustat did not receive FDA approval for another 14 years, a delay that Shayman speculated was due to some company leaders not being fully committed to developing a drug that would compete with imiglucerase (brand name Cerezyme), Genzymes flagship treatment for Gauchers disease. Society and culture
Economics
In 2014, the annual cost of eliglustat taken orally twice a day was $310,250. Cerezyme cost about $300,000 for the intravenous medication if taken twice a month. Manufacturing costs for eliglustat are slightly lower than for imiglucerase.