M40 Alliance launched to speed up arthritis treatment
6 Jan 2017 by Evoluted New Media
A new alliance has been formed to quicken the development of novel treatments for arthritis.
A new alliance has been formed to quicken the development of novel treatments for arthritis.
The partnership between the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham, named the M40 Alliance, will develop a network of consultants, nurses and clinical researchers along the M40. The alliance’s Arthritis Therapy Acceleration Programme (A-TAP) will develop and test therapies based on underlying symptoms, instead of treating clinical symptoms.
Professor Chris Buckley, from the University of Birmingham, said: “The current rate limiting step in experimental medicine is not how to design new and safe drugs but how to improve their efficacy beyond the current best treatments, and how to best match their use to the right disease.
“Our A-TAP will use strategies that have worked in the cancer field to repurpose drugs to new indications, as well as using innovative concepts in trial design such as bucket trials where one drug is tried out in a range of different inflammatory diseases at an early stage.”
Arthritis is the inflammation of a joint, with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis the most common types. In the UK, 10m people are estimated to have arthritis. Osteoarthritis is caused by the breakdown of joint cartilage and underlying bone, whereas rheumatoid arthritis is a long-lasting autoimmune disorder that affects joints.
Professor Buckley will assume a new role as Director of Clinical Research at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford to oversee A-TAP. University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire will also be involved alongside the two A-TAP hubs situated in Birmingham and Oxford.
Professor Fiona Powrie, from Oxford University, said: “This exciting initiative will allow us to place basic research at the heart of innovative new clinical trials. Lots of new molecular targets have been identified recently for a range of immune mediated inflammatory diseases like arthritis, yet there remains a time lag between identification of drugs, the choice of which disease to use them in, and their adoption into clinical practice. By identifying the underlying causes of disease we will be able to bridge current knowledge gaps and match therapy to underlying disease pathology.”
This relationship is supported by a £7million investment from the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research, which supports the research of the Oxford research lab. Both universities are also investing more money in infrastructure and recruitment. Each is investing more than £3m in new and existing research posts with four new posts at Birmingham and six more at Oxford.
