For you in this issue:  Annual Report | MDS World Awareness Day | COVID-19 Survey from NIH | October/November Webinars | MDS Toolkit | New Patient Survey | MDS Clinical Trial | Research and Treatment NEWS | NIH COVID + Aplastic Anemia Survey | Giving Tuesday

All week we'll be featuring patient stories and news about MDS, in addition to our contribution to the #FacesofMDS Campaign. 

AND, what would you tell MDS? Send your "Dear MDS" letter to baker@aamds.org.  

Final Webinars in October

• October 27, 2020:  What is Chemo Brain? Diagnosis and Treatment for Bone Marrow Failure Disease Patients (@ 1:30 pm ET)
• October 28, 2020:  Diagnosis and Management of Bronchiolitis Obliterans Syndrome After Transplant (@ 4 pm ET)

Webinars Coming in November:

• November 6, 2020:  Aplastic Anemia and PNH:  What's the Connection? (@ 12 pm ET)
• November 6, 2020:  A Patient's Perspective on the Latest Research from ASCO/EHA (@ 3:30 pm ET)
• November 10, 2020:  "I'm So Tired:  Dealing with Fatigue and Other Side Effects of Bone Marrow Failure Disease" (@ 2 pm ET)
• November 12, 2020:  A Candid Conversation with Caregivers:  How We Care for Our Loved Ones with Bone Marrow Failure Disease (@ 3 pm ET)
• November 17, 2020:  De-Stress the Holidays:  Yoga with Jenny Finkel (@ 3 pm ET)
• November 19, 2020:  Short Telomere Syndrome:  Implications for MDS and AML Patients (@ 2:30 pm ET)
• November 30, 2020:  Chronic Kidney Disease and PNH (@ 4 pm ET)

IMerge is a two-part Phase 2/3 clinical trial of imetelstat in transfusion dependent patients with lower-risk MDS who are relapsed after or refractory to erythroid stimulating agents (ESAs). The Phase 3 portion is planned to enroll approximately 170 patients in a randomized (2:1 ratio of imetelstat:placebo), double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial to test the hypothesis that imetelstat improves the rate of red blood cell transfusion independence (TI). 

News for Haploidentical Transplant:

Gamida Cell Announces Positive Topline Data on Secondary Endpoints from Phase 3 Clinical Study of Omidubicel in Patients with Hematologic Malignancies

More information at the link above and here: Fact Sheet

Clinical Trial information, including requirements here: 

https://www.aamds.org/treatments/clinical-trials/multicenter-randomized-phase-iii-registration-trial-transplantation

Good News for PNH Treatment: 

Alexion Receives FDA Approval for New Advanced Formulation of ULTOMIRIS^® (ravulizumab-cwvz) with Significantly Reduced Infusion Time

Press release here: https://ir.alexion.com/news-releases/news-release-details/alexion-receives-fda-approval-new-advanced-formulation