People and Places in the News
- By BSTQ Staff
Clinical Research Advantage (CRA), the country’s largest wholly owned network of clinical trial sites, has acquired the late phase division of Comprehensive Clinical Development to allow CRA to offer pharmaceutical sponsors and contract research organizations an across-the-board solution for their diverse clinical research needs. CRA includes 63 sites listed under “CRA” and “Radiant Research.” Both brands are known as leaders in Stage II-IV clinical trials. CRA focuses on family practice and general medicine, while Radiant conducts multi-specialty and consumer trials.
Merck & Co. will work with Pfizer Inc., Amgen Inc. and Incyte Corp. to find the most-promising combination treatments for its top pipeline prospect, MK-3475, an immune system- based cancer medicine. The drug is one of a new class of experimental treatments called PD-1 inhibitors that use the body’s own immune system to attack and kill tumors.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health and its foundation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a pharmaceutical trade group, along with 10 major drugmakers and six disease-related foundations, will commit a combined $230 million to focus on complex chronic disorders: Alzheimer’s, type 2 diabetes and the autoimmune disorders rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Several large European pharmaceutical companies are teaming up with universities, small- and medium-sized enterprises, patient groups and regulators to deliver new treatments for systemic autoimmune disease. The new collaborative effort, working under the name PRECISESADS, will study 2,000 patients living with systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, Sjogren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, primary antiphospholipid syndrome and mixed connective tissue disease, as well as 600 healthy controls, to identify overlapping clusters of individuals across these diseases that share recognizable molecular features and that consequently may benefit from treatments targeting these diseases.
