Issue: January 2020

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December 16, 2019
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CURE ID crowdsources novel uses of existing drugs

Issue: January 2020
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The FDA recently announced the launch of CURE ID, an online repository where clinicians can report novel uses of existing drugs for difficult-to-treat infectious diseases. The program was developed in collaboration with the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

“I would definitely use this platform,” Infectious Disease News Editorial Board Member Raghavendra Tirupathi, MD, FACP, medical director of Keystone Infectious Diseases/HIV, chair of infection prevention at Summit Health and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Penn State University School of Medicine, told Healio.

According to a news release, users can access CURE ID on a computer, smartphone or other mobile device, allowing them to crowdsource medical information and promote the expansion of novel treatments for neglected diseases. The app records and stores when a drug is used for a new indication, among a new population, in a new dose or in a new combination.

“The systematic collection of real-world experience in the app will help identify drug candidates for additional study, encourage further drug development, and may serve as a resource for practitioners making individual patient treatment decisions in the absence of established safe and effective options,” the FDA said. “Repurposing approved drugs for new clinical indications can potentially offer an efficient drug-development pathway for treatments of diseases and conditions that have few or no therapeutic options.”

Providers can fill out a simple case report through CURE ID, detailing their successful or unsuccessful experience using “an approved product for an unapproved use.” Other clinicians and health care providers can then access these reports. Relevant clinical trials and open enrollment trials on ClinicalTrials.gov also can be accessed through the app, which includes a discussion forum, allowing for global engagement.

Tirupathi said the app could be a “valuable resource” in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. However, he cautioned that the platform is not meant to promote off-label use.

“This is about capturing what clinicians are already doing in clinical practice and learning from it. The tool is meant to be hypothesis generating,” Tirupathi said. “It is meant to help both identify promising new uses of existing drugs for formal study, along with ineffective or harmful uses so these can be avoided.”

CURE ID was developed to be user friendly, Tirupathi said, and is methodical about case report collection.

“The hope is that it can help provide better data to clinicians in the absence of established safe and effective therapy, and to inform further formal drug development,” he said. “I would encourage ID physicians and clinicians to share their experience with their colleagues as the app is only as useful as the cases and discussions that are contributed to it. This in turn will help FDA and other partners to identify areas of unmet medical need.”

CURE ID can be downloaded from the website, or from the App or Play Store. – by Marley Ghizzone

Reference:

FDA. CURE ID App lets clinicians report novel uses of existing drugs. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/science-and-research-drugs/cure-id-app-lets-clinicians-report-novel-uses-existing-drugs. Accessed December 11, 2019.

Disclosure: Tirupathi reports no relevant financial disclosures.