The Bray Family Story

Wayne and Dawn Bray lost their two-year- old son, Dally, to a scorpion sting in 2002. The Brays live in a small rural community in Arizona, the state in which the majority of the 20,000 or so reported scorpion stings in the U.S. each occur.

Severe venomous scorpion stings occur most frequently in infants and children, and can cause shortness of breath, fluid in the lungs, breathing problems, excess saliva, blurred vision, slurred speech, trouble walking, and other uncoordinated muscle movements. Untreated cases can be fatal.

Dally died within hours of being stung by a scorpion, and the Brays live with the painful memory of desperately seeking help as their little boy exhibited sudden and frightening symptoms.

When their youngest son, Morgan, also suffered a scorpion sting a few years later, the family rushed him to the nearest rural hospital. From there, he was taken by helicopter to a Tucson hospital, where he was given an experimental anti-venom that saved his life. Today, Morgan is fine.

That product, known as Anascorp®, is designed specifically for scorpion stings and provides new treatment for both children and adults. It is made from the plasma of horses immunized with scorpion venom.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Anascorp® as a treatment for scorpion stings in August 2011. The product is manufactured in Mexico, where scorpion stings are far more common, but is licensed to Rare Disease Therapeutics, Inc., which obtained orphan designation and conducted clinical trials leading to its approval.

After learning of the FDA approval, Dawn Bray said she felt “joy and elation” that this treatment would now be available to other families going through what her family experienced with Dally.

It leaves her with a feeling that her son “didn’t pass away in vain,” she says..

Rare Disease Therapeutics, Inc. and Bioclon are Gold Sponsors of the IST 2016 Conference in Miami Beach, FL.