First Patients Enrolled: 3TR Clinical Study Investigating Targeted Therapies in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Has Started
With the aim to advance our understanding of the molecular pathways and mechanisms linked to non-response to therapy in inflammatory bowel disease, 3TR has just started an observational open-label study involving six clinical centres across Europe: Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel (Germany), Tis Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire Nancy (France), Consorci Insitut D’Inversitgacions Biomediques August Pi l Sunyer Barclona (Spain), University Hospital Leuven (Belgium), Örebro University (Sweden), The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge (UK). Takeda Pharmaceuticals is leading this public-private partnership with the six academic centres.
Scientifically coordinated by Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, the first 10 patients are now enrolled at the leading clinical centre in Kiel. In total, 600 IBD patients will be recruited over the next five years by the six cooperating centres. Seeking to identify reliable biomarkers (i.e. measurable indicators of disease or disease severity) that help predict or show at an early therapy stage, whether a person responds to medication or not, the prospective study will investigate blood samples, stool or gut tissue from patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These biomaterials will later be used for various molecular analyses within the 3TR consortium such as single-cell sequencing methods, microbiome profiling, or metabolome analyses.
The IBD trial is one of five prospective clinical studies foreseen in the ambitious 3TR workplan. Similar trials focusing on patients with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, as well as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will be conducted. Following a unique integrative analysis approach, the data generated in these trials will be studied across the different disease clusters both in parallel and jointly, and will be complemented by the analysis of academic study collections funded external to 3TR as well as industry-driven clinical trial data.
