Pharmacy Daily | Taking a ‘moonshot’ for RA remission

THE Federal Government is investing $11.54 million in a University of Queensland project that aims to put rheumatoid arthritis into remission, potentially eliminating the need for lifelong immunotherapy.

The chronic condition affects 450,000 Australians, causing pain, disability, and early death as the body mistakenly attacks its own joint proteins.

The Reset Rheumatoid Arthritis project brings together experts in immunotherapy, clinical trials, and patient care to develop antigen-specific tolerising immunotherapy, which retrains the immune system to tolerate joint proteins.

At the launch of the project, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler commented that "the chronic pain associated with this condition can take a very heavy toll on a person's mental health and affect their ability to function and take part in normal day to day activities".

"I'm proud the government is supporting Australian researchers to take this 'moonshot' and hopefully reset the immune system of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.

"This would be transformative and a world-first for people with rheumatoid arthritis."

Off the back of promising early trials, and the team is now focused on developing a second-generation treatment for future clinical testing.

Lead researcher, Prof Ranjeny Thomas, explained that his team can now accelerate work to ready clinical trials of ASITI-RA.

"This is an antigen-specific immunotherapy we developed to reprogram the immune system to sustain long-term remission in rheumatoid arthritis," said Thomas.

"Within two years, we expect to be able to start phase one clinical trials of the immunotherapy, which aims to reduce the need for lifelong immunosuppression," he added.

The funding is part of the Medical Research Future Fund's Frontiers program, which supports ambitious research with the potential to transform the treatment of serious and incurable conditions. JG