Emerging therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis applied to drug discovery

Background: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neuromuscular disease mainly caused by genetic disorders. This progressive disorder involves the degeneration of motor neurons at various levels. Drugs have been studied, and they show improvement in survival and reduced progression of the disease, they are riluzole and edaravone. Objectives: Investigate emerging therapies for the treatment of ALS. Methods: The Pubmed database was used to conduct the research, and the keywords were “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis”, “Emerging”, “Therapies”,”Drugs”, all present in Mesh. Articles from 2016 to 2021 were used. And the survey was conducted on May 2, 2021. Results: Only two drugs have been approved yet by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of ALS, riluzole and edaravone, and each one offers modest benefits in mortality and/or function. On the other hand, 88 studies of clinical intervention trials are active using different drugs. Current therapies under development include oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors (masitinib, trametinib); the antisense oligonucleotide (tofersen); the human monoclonal antibody inhibitor (ravulizumab); and mesenchymal stem cells (MSC); among others (RT001, Enoxacin, Engensis, ANX005, Deferiprone). Conclusions: Due to gaps in the knowledge of the specific pathophysiology of ALS, the definitive treatment is still a mystery. The drugs currently in use, riluzole and edaravone, are the most promising in terms of delaying the progression of the disease.