I came across this, *edit*

I am not at all familiar with US (or any other country's medical procedures for that matter), but can someone please explain what this means? Does this mean that Cogane is available to purchase,? I for one would like to try it out for myself, at my own risk. If it halts progress of the condition, well and good. If not, at least I tried it. What is the point of waiting for years maybe, till they prove one way or another?

Orphan status means that the potential ALS market size(small) limits the amount of money that companies will expend on trials. The drug can therefore 'piggyback' off existing (PD) trial results once released.

*moderator edit*

Hi
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Here is a link.

http://www.alsa.org/news/archive/cogane_8-9-11.html

Thanks for your clarification. Am new to this. Of course we must never get into copyright issues.

A little online investigation....From the Cogane makers website: http://www.phytopharm.co.uk/

"Our lead series of compounds, the Sapogenins (including Cogane™ and Myogane™), has the potential to be a new class of therapy for neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and glaucoma."

Now to define the Sapogenins we go to Wiki:

Sapogenins are the aglycones, or non-saccharide, portions of the family of natural products known as saponins. Sapogenins contain steroid or other triterpene frameworks as their key organic feature. For example, steroidal sapogenins like tiggenin, neogitogenin, and tokorogenin have been isolated from the tubers of Chlorophytum arundinacelum.[2]
The chemical structure of yamogenin,[1] a sapogenin found in fenugreek

Now, Fenugreek is familiar as an herb used in cooking and healing for centuries but the tuber mentioned above turns out to be an herb used in Indian healing and previously studied:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20564504.

It is more commonly known as moosli or safed moosli which is a misnomer as there are several different species of moosli (which all appear to contain sapogenins).
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/C...fedmoosli.html

Both fenugreek and moosli can be obtained as herbs online.

When I read that the sagonenins contain steroid or other triterpene frameworks as their key organic feature, a bell went off in my head.
I just had read of another study or trial that was being done with
triterpene. So I looked and found this article:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-0...parkinson.html
Powerful class of antioxidants may be potent Parkinson's treatment

"A class of antioxidants called synthetic triterpenoids blocked development of Parkinson's in an animal model that develops the disease in a handful of days, said Dr. Bobby Thomas, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University and corresponding author of the study in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. Thomas and his colleagues were able to block the death of dopamine-producing brain cells that occurs in Parkinson's by using the drugs to bolster Nrf2, a natural antioxidant and inflammation fighter. Stressors from head trauma to insecticide exposure to simple aging increase oxidative stress and the body responds with inflammation, part of its natural repair process. "This creates an environment in your brain that is not conducive for normal function," Thomas said. "You can see the signs of oxidative damage in the brain long before the neurons actually degenerate in Parkinson's." Nrf2, the master regulator of oxidative stress and inflammation, is – inexplicably – significantly decreased early in Parkinson's. In fact, Nrf2 activity declines normally with age. "In Parkinson's patients you can clearly see a significant overload of oxidative stress, which is why we chose this target," Thomas said. "We used drugs to selectively activate Nrf2." They parsed a number of antioxidants already under study for a wide range of diseases from kidney failure to heart disease and diabetes, and found triterpenoids the most effective on Nrf2. Co-author Dr. Michael Sporn, Professor of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, chemically modified the agents so they could permeate the protective blood-brain barrier. Both in human neuroblastoma and mouse brain cells they were able to document an increase in Nrf2 in response to the synthetic triterpenoids. Human dopaminergic cells are not available for research so the scientists used the human neuroblastoma cells, which are actually cancer cells that have some properties similar to neurons. Their preliminary evidence indicates the synthetic triterpenoids also increase Nrf2 activity in astrocytes, a brain cell type which nourishes neurons and hauls off some of their garbage. The drugs didn't protect brain cells in an animal where the Nrf2 gene was deleted, more proof that that Nrf2 is the drugs' target. The researchers used the powerful neurotoxin MPTP to mimic Parkinson's-like brain cell damage in a matter of days. They are now looking at the impact of synthetic triterpenoids in an animal model genetically programmed to acquire the disease more slowly, as humans do. Collaborators at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine also will be providing induced pluripotent stem cells, adult stem cells that can be coaxed into forming dopaminergic neurons, for additional drug testing."

So, personally, as a lab rat myself, and desperate, I'm not waiting for Pharma to go through their machinations before I give it a try.