31 December 2012

MRC Invests Over £10m in Stratified Medicine Research

The MRC is to invest £10.6m in three major new collaborations that will advance the emerging field of stratified medicine – investigating why different patients with the same diagnosis respond differently to treatments. The collaborations, announced today by the Prime Minister in a report on UK life sciences, will deliver a better understanding of the mechanisms behind these diseases will one day enable doctors to prescribe drugs and therapies that are tailored to an individual’s genetic make-up, vastly improving their chances of getting better and reducing their risk of experiencing serious side-effects.

The collaborations will look at stratified medicine approaches in three diseases which have a huge impact on people’s lives: rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis C and a rare genetic condition called Gaucher disease. The awards will establish research consortia in each of these diseases in order to draw on the expertise of scientists, industry and patient charities, underpinned by the infrastructure of the NHS. The three consortia will combine 34 academic groups and 20 industry partners with charities and patients across the UK.

Professor Patrick Johnston, Chair of the MRC’s Translational Research Group, which funded the awards, said:

“Stratified medicine is all about selecting the right drug, for the right patient, at the right time. Only by harnessing a diverse mix of knowledge and expertise from across academia, industry and medical charities can we gain the deeper understanding of illnesses needed to make those decisions and deliver more effective treatments targeted to patients’ needs. The consortia funded by the MRC will allow UK researchers and health professionals to take those important first steps to developing a stratified approach to patient care.”

David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said:

“These consortia bring together the UK’s world class universities, health charities and industry to improve drug development. They have the potential to improve patient care and help make the UK the location of choice for clinical trials. This will help us get ahead in the global race.”

Medical director of Arthritis Research UK, Professor Alan Silman said:

”We are delighted to be working in collaboration with the MRC as part of this major initiative, as developing stratified medicine in inflammatory arthritis is one of our major research focuses. We are aiming to identify treatment response predictors that will allow people with rheumatoid arthritis to be started on drugs which they will benefit from most, early in the disease process.”

Stratified medicine is a completely new approach to scientific research and medical care. It groups patients into ‘strata’ based on differences in the way they experience a particular disease and how that affects their response to treatment. Before this can happen, groups of patients must be studied to understand what it is about their genetic and physical make-up that determines these differences.

STOP-HCV, a hepatitis C consortium led by the University of Oxford, will develop cutting-edge gene sequencing technologies to find out why 30 per cent of people fail to respond to a new type of hepatitis treatment called direct antiviral therapy. The group of 14 academic institutions and eight industry partners will use a state-of-the-art clinical database and a bio-repository of blood samples from hepatitis C infected people that has been established by HCV Research UK — a multi-disciplinary collaborative enterprise funded by a £1.92m grant from the Medical Research Foundation and based at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. This information will help the STOP-HCV consortium to decipher the genetic makeup of both the virus and the patient and draw this information together to improve patient care.

The MATURA consortium, led by Queen Mary, University of London, and the University of Manchester, aims to enable early, effective treatment and improve the cost-effectiveness of care for around 500,000 people in the UK who suffer from the painful inflammatory condition rheumatoid arthritis. It will search for biological and genetic markers in blood and joints which could be used as clues to predict how patients will respond to anti-inflammatory drugs. If successful it is estimated that a stratified treatment approach for this condition could save the NHS £13-18m a year. Co-funded by a £1m grant from Arthritis Research UK, this project combines 12 academic groups with nine industry partners.

The GAUCHERITE consortium aims to improve the care of people with Gaucher, a rare genetic disorder in which a build-up of fatty chemicals causes bleeding, painful skeletal complaints and swelling of some internal organs. Even identical twins differ markedly in disease severity, indicating that non-genetic components play a role in the condition. Five treatments are currently available, but patients could respond differently to drugs because of the complexity of the disease. GAUCHERITE will bring together specialist doctors and scientists, led by Cambridge University, who will examine at least 85 per cent of all UK Gaucher patients and 'stratify' them by the nature of their disease to allow them to better target therapy interventions. They will also work closely with major industrial partners and patient groups.

The £60m, four-year MRC investment in stratified medicine research was announced as part of the UK Life Sciences Strategy on the 5 December 2011. The MRC received 30 outline applications in 28 disease areas for the initiative. An expert panel - comprising clinicians; academics; representatives of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics companies; disease charities and international members - shortlisted six applications which were invited to submit full applications. The MRC has developed a rolling programme for consortia development and other disease areas will soon be competing for funding.

Notes

The Prime Minister today launched Strategy for UK Life Sciences: One Year On a report which summarises progress made in the first 12 months since last year’s launch of the Strategy for UK Life Sciences.

The MRC previously invested £11.5m in three pilot consortia – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes. The diabetes consortium - called the MASTERMIND partnership– was recently awarded £2m by the MRC to launch a pilot study as part of joint MRC/Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry scheme designed to examine stratification in Type 2 diabetes.If this pilot phase is successful, the consortium will be awarded a further £4m to complete the project. The MASTERMIND consortium involves over 20 partners, including academic institutions across the UK, UK health care providers and pharmaceutical companies GSK, Pfizer, Astrazeneca, Takeda and Bristol Meyers Squibb.

To speak to one of the principal investigators of the MRC Stratified Medicine consortia, contact Hannah Isom in the MRC press office on 0207 395 2345 (out of hours: 07818 428 297) or emailpress.office@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk.

Full list of consortia partners

STOP-HCV Consortium: Lead Applicant Dr Ellie Barnes, University of Oxford

Academic Partners: University of Oxford, MRC Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, University of Glasgow, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College London, University of Birmingham, University of Dundee, University of Nottingham, University of Bristol, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, The University of Edinburgh, University of Southampton, Health Protection Agency.

Industrial Partners: Medivir AB, United Therapeutics, Janssen Diagnostics, Oncimmune, Gilead, Merck Sharp &Dohme, Okairos, Conatus.

MATURA consortium: lead applicant Professor ConstantinoPitzalis, Queen Mary, University of London

Academic Partners: Queen Mary and Westfield College University of London, The University of Manchester, University of Leeds, The University of Birmingham, University College London, University of Newcastle, University Of Oxford, University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, King's College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Sheffield.

Industry Partners: Activiomics, Amgen Inc, Complete Genomics Inc., Genentech, Janssen Research and Development, MedImmune, Pfizer, Qiagen Limited, UCB Pharma.

GAUCHERITE consortium: Lead applicant Professor Timothy Cox, University of Cambridge

Academic Partners: University of Oxford, University College London, University of Cambridge, MRC Biostatistics Unit, Great Ormond Street Hospital, St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Salford Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Industry partners: Shire, Genzyme, Actelion.