EMD Serono Collaborates With Accelerated Cure Project For MS Research Study
By C. Rajan, contributing writer
EMD Serono last week announced that it has entered an agreement with the Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis (ACP) to help launch a new MS research program called the Optimizing Treatment—Understanding Progression (OPT-UP) study. The collaborative research study will help advance the understanding of and treatment options for MS, which is a disabling neurological disease affecting more than two million people worldwide.
The OPT-UP study will be a U.S.-based, clinical research program enrolling about 2,500 people with MS, who will be followed for up to five years. The long term goals of the OPT-UP study are to identify and analyze the factors affecting treatment outcomes in MS, and to produce the knowledge and tools for advancing better treatments for MS.
"We have been working diligently with leading MS clinicians, people living with MS, biopharma companies, and foundations to design a study that addresses the most critical medical needs in MS today," said Robert McBurney, president and CEO of ACP, a non-profit organization for MS research. "We are thrilled that EMD Serono, a leader in the area of MS therapeutics, has chosen to take a lead founding sponsor role, providing the support needed to implement this important study."
As of now, nine research and academic institutions are participating in the OPT-UP study, including UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford. The study subjects will be enrolled at up to 20 MS clinics and will be followed from two to five years. The researchers will aim to collect high-quality data on treatment outcomes, biological samples, and imaging data required to accomplish the goals of OPT-UP.
"Our collaboration with the Accelerated Cure Project on the OPT-UP clinical research study offers us an extraordinary opportunity to combine complementary expertise and resources to improve patient outcomes," said Dr. Thorsten Eickenhorst, senior VP and CMO of EMD Serono. "This study underscores our company's dedication to furthering breakthrough scientific research that can advance treatment options for those living with multiple sclerosis."
EMD Serono, a subsidiary of Merck, is focused on developing treatments for MS, cancer and autoimmune diseases, and recently announced positive results from its MS pipeline products that are currently in Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials.
EMD Serono has recently entered into several other collaborations to advance its research efforts and pipeline products. On Sept 2, EMD Serono announced that it had signed a collaborative research agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital to work on the autoimmune conditions, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Lupus Nephritis (LN) pathogenesis — an area of interest for the company, considering earlier this year, it signed a research agreement with Pfizer and the Broad Institute in Massachusetts, which focused on the genomic profiling of SLE and Lupus Nephritis LN patients. In June this year, the company entered a collaboration and license agreement with Mersana Therapeutics to collaboratively develop next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for oncology.