Empowered Patient Podcast

Jan D'Alvise is the President and CEO of Acasti Pharma, a late-stage specialty pharma company addressing rare and orphan diseases. The topic today is the treatment of the rare disease SAH, otherwise known as subarachnoid hemorrhage with GTX-104, a reformulation of the existing drug nimodipine. We also talk about reformulating and repurposing drugs for the rare neurodegenerative disorder ataxia-telangiectasia A-T that affects young children and for treating postherpetic neuralgia, the severe nerve pain that persists in some patients after they have a shingles infection. Jan explains, "So an aneurysm in the brain is known as subarachnoid hemorrhage. Now you could have bleeding on the brain caused by other things, but if it's caused by a burst aneurysm, it's known as subarachnoid hemorrhage or SAH." "So I mentioned that nimodipine is the standard of care today, and all patients who present with SAH are put on nimodipine post-surgery. The nimodipine is very potent, so you have to carefully monitor it. The problem