New York, NY, December 17, 2024 —
Today is “Endpoints Clinical Trials Day,” hosted by international biopharma news outlet Endpoints News. The day features a series of discussions on the latest trends in clinical trials in the US and abroad, the regulatory environment, and how industry and others are helping to improve trial strategies of the future. These include plans to ensure more rare disease trials, increase patient enrollment, and create more patient-centric, streamlined, and robust trials.
Stacie J. Bell, PhD, Executive Vice President of Lupus Therapeutics (LT), the clinical research affiliate of the Lupus Research Alliance (LRA), is participating in today’s Clinical Trials Day. In this Q&A, Dr. Bell discusses the clinical trial challenges specific to lupus and how Lupus Therapeutics and the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN), which LT oversees, is addressing them. Dr. Bell also explains why there is great optimism about recent lupus research advances and the involvement of LRA across the research continuum.
Lupus is a multi-faceted, heterogeneous disease that complicates patient population inclusion and outcome assessments. In addition, lupus commonly impacts groups often underrepresented in clinical trials.
Lupus Therapeutics offers a suite of services that includes advisory support for clinical trial design and conduct, leveraging the vast expertise of LuCIN, the network of 50+ premier leading medical research institutions in North America that Lupus Therapeutics oversees, and patient engagement services to ensure that the individuals living with lupus have a voice in clinical research. Lupus Therapeutics also has programs such as PALS (Patient Advocates for Lupus Studies) and Project CHANGE (Community-based Health Action Network to Generate trial participation and Eliminate disparities) to educate, support and include the diverse lupus community in clinical trials.
With a greater understanding of the disease and many development programs progressing, it is a time like no other for lupus clinical research. Recently, there were two positive Phase 3 studies reported in the same week! Lupus Therapeutics and LuCIN are involved in multiple studies with different treatment mechanisms of action and approaches to evaluate numerous potential options at various phases of drug development. Lupus Therapeutics remains a leader in the evaluation of new treatment paradigms such as cell therapy. Lupus Therapeutics and LuCIN will be instrumental in bringing new therapies to market and most importantly, to those living with lupus.
