Protagen AG, Dortmund, Germany, recently joined the RA-MAP consortium, formed in December 2011 with the primary aim of identifying clinical, molecular and cellular biomarkers of prognosis and therapeutic response in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
As part of the Medical Research Council (MRC)/Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Inflammation and Immunology Initiative, the consortium consists of a close collaboration among 10 academic partners, including King’s College London, Manchester University, MRC’s biostatistics unit, Newcastle University, Queen Mary University of London, University College London, University of Birmingham, University of Glasgow, University of Leeds, and University of Oxford, and 10 industry partners, including Abbvie, North Chicago, Ill; Amgen, Thousand Oaks, Calif; AstraZeneca, London; Eisai, Tokyo; GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, UK; Janssen, Beerse, Belgium; MedImmune, Gaithersburg, Md; Pfizer, New York; Roche, Basel, Switzerland; UCB Celltech, Slough, UK; and now Protagen.
The consortium seeks to understand the human immune system in RA, one of the most common autoimmune diseases in the world, through the study of biological samples from RA patients. The group plans to develop an “immunological toolkit” measuring the immune status of healthy individuals and patients.
“We are delighted that Protagen joins our RA-MAP consortium, contributing their proprietary SeroTag platform to our search for biomarkers in RA,” says John Isaacs, director of the Institute of Cellular Medicine and professor of clinical rheumatology at Newcastle University, who leads the Consortium. “In RA, there is a major need to identify the characteristics of those individuals most likely to achieve clinical remission so that both new and existing therapies can be targeted to the right patient populations.”
Stefan Müllner, Protagen.
“Our innovative diagnostic technology for the first time allows the systematic discovery of biomarkers predicting remission and the response to treatments in RA,” says Stefan Müllner, CEO of Protagen. “As such it enables new approaches to successful drug development and support patients, rheumatologists, payors and the pharma industry in our combined effort to improve patient management by rationalizing treatment decision especially early during disease course. This is exactly what RA-MAP is aiming for and we feel privileged to be part of the consortium and support these efforts.”
For more information, visit Protagen.
