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Competing Interests: Competing interests: Ari Breiner has served as site principal investigator for trials for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis funded by Mallinkrodt, Cytokinetics and the University of Calgary. He has also received research grant funding from CIDP/GBS Foundation International, Grifols and Muscular Dystropy Canada, and honoraria from CSL, Allergan, Pfizer and Akcea. Ari Breiner and Lorne Zinman have received honoraria from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. Lorne Zinman has also received an honorarium from Biogen. No other competing interests were declared.

Cerebrolysin, a parenteral peptide preparation produced by controlled digestion of porcine brain proteins, is an approved nootropic medicine in some countries. However, it is also easily and globally available on the Internet. Nevertheless, until now, its exact chemical composition was unknown. Using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to ion trap and ultra high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) coupled to quadrupole-ion mobility-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Q-IM-TOF MS), combined with UniProt pig protein database search and PEAKS de novo sequencing, we identified 638 unique peptides in an Internet-obtained Cerebrolysin sample. The main components in this sample originate from tubulin alpha- and beta-chain, actin, and myelin basic protein. No fragments of known neurotrophic factors like glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), neurotrophin nerve growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) were found, suggesting that the activities reported in the literature are likely the result of new, hitherto unknown cryptic peptides with nootropic properties., (Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Objectives: To determine whether sales statistics for riluzole can be used as a marker for the prevalence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)/motor neuron disease (MND) in Sweden., Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was sent to all neurological units in Sweden asking about the numbers of patients with ALS/MND and whether these patients were treated with riluzole. Sales statistics for riluzole were obtained from the 906 public pharmacies and 89 hospital pharmacies in Sweden., Results: Eighty percent of the neurological units answered the questionnaire. The estimated prevalence in September 2003 from the questionnaire was 5.4/100,000 inhabitants. The sales expressed in defined daily dose/100,000 inhabitants/day was 3.8. For the counties the correlation between these two parameters was 0.83., Conclusion: Estimated prevalence is highly correlated with sales statistics for riluzole. Riluzole sales statistics could be used as a crude marker for the prevalence of ALS/MND in Sweden.